hey there
lol anon, you beat me to it
excellent points.
my 2c, 'immune booster' is as much a misnomer as the term 'normal'.
ms patients have low zinc status compared to healthy controls.
i see no sense whatever in ignoring a nutrient deficit for fear of an immune system 'boost'.
afaic, zinc 'boost's your immune system by giving your body the tools it needs to operate said immune system properly.
Multiple impacts of zinc on immune function
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlel ... ivAbstract
Even though zinc is essential for virtually all processes in the human body, observations during zinc deficiency indicate that the absence of this trace element most severely affects the immune response. Numerous investigations of the cellular and molecular requirements for zinc in the immune system have indicated that there is not just one single function of zinc underlying this essentiality. In fact, there is a wide range of different roles of zinc in immunity. This review summarizes the recent developments in three of the major fields: the role of zinc as a second messenger in signal transduction, the importance of zinc for immune cell function, and the competition for zinc between the host and the pathogen, a concept known as nutritional immunity. ... In mice,
zinc treatment suppressed TH17 development and related autoimmune disease
Nutrition, geoepidemiology, and autoimmunity
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7209002006
As well represented by the impaired immune function of malnourished individuals encountered in developing countries and the incidence of specific diseases following local nutrient deficiencies, nutrition and immunity have been linked to each other for centuries while the specific connection between dietary factors and autoimmunity onset or modulation is a more recent acquisition. Autoimmune diseases manifest limited prevalence rates in developing countries while numerous immunity-related claims have been proposed in the field of functional foods. Nevertheless, over the past years
multiple lines of evidence have supported a major role for specific dietary factors (including vitamin D, vitamin A, selenium, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, and flavanols) in determining the immune responses involved in infections, allergies, and autoimmune diseases. Interestingly, the link between nutrition and autoimmunity may well contribute to the geoepidemiology observed for numerous conditions. In general terms, most data that will be discussed herein were obtained in experimental or animal models while human data from real-life clinical settings or randomized clinical trials remain largely unsatisfactory. Our current knowledge on the beneficial impact of nutrition on autoimmunity prompts us to encourage the search for evidence-based nutrition to support the everyday diet choices of patients.
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