Zinc is required for normal immune function. Major functions of the immune system are defense against microbial infection and defense against malignancies.
Zinc has attracted much attention in cancer research since 1922 when Cristol showed that the concentration in cancerous tissues is exceptionally high (A.Mathur and Ph.D Thesis, University of Lund, Sweden 1978).
It has been reported that the liver zinc concentration is significantly higher in subjects dying due to malignant diseases that in subjects who are non-malignant. The increase was found to be confined to the parts of the liver which showed no macro or microscopic evidence of carcinomatous invasions.
It also been suggested that the lover zinc concentration rises probably as a part of the normal tissue biochemical defense reaction against infection by the malignant cells.
Many workers have reported decreased zinc in plasma. Zinc can speed up tumor growth and that low zinc levels in plasma not the result of zinc intake, but rather the result of the tumor’s need for high quantities of zinc, especially when tumors have a high rate of DNA synthesis, which depends partly in zinc.
Zinc and cancer
