Let's talk about scurvy. Just about every Nutrition 101 class tells the story about how European sailors on long voyages often suffered from this potentially life-threatening disease. In 1498, Vasco da Gama saw 100 of his 160-member crew die of this disease during his journey to India. Twenty-one years later Magellan topped his record when 200 of the 218 original crew members on his expedition to the Philippines died of scurvy. Lack of vitamin C was eventually discovered to be the cause of scurvy, but there are problems with this story and its eventual happy ending.
Think about it. European expeditions seldom stayed at sea for more than a few months. Why didn't we ever hear stories about the Vikings, who participated in long journeys across the Atlantic, dying from scurvy? Or the Chinese, who often remained at sea for months? And isn't it interesting that among the European sailors, the officers rarely came down with scurvy? The real problem with the European sailors, you see, was not so much a lack of information about the secret nutritional values of orange juice as it was greed.
"The sailors were generally fed according to contract; a firm agreed to provision the ship for the voyage for a fixed sum - and the cheaper the food, the greater their profit," says Dr. David Reuben in his 1978 book Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Nutrition. As a result, continues Reuben, the European sailors "were fed a diet of salt fish, salt beef, and crackers made from rye flour. There wasn't an ounce of vitamin C in a ton of that stuff." Further, during shore leave the sailors saw no reason to invest their coins on the local cuisine.
The Vikings and Chinese didn't get scurvy because they ate, respectively, sauerkraut and bean sprouts, which contain vitamin C. The European officers, incidentally, were protected because they often brought a supply of potatoes, which also contain vitamin C, on board to indulge in. It doesn't take much vitamin C to prevent scurvy, and in today's society the disease is virtually extinct. And now you know!
The reason I am spending so much time on this subject is that the European scurvy stories, along with claims that vitamin C will prevent the common cold and possibly prevent cancer, has Americans obsessed with this water-soluble nutrient. Vitamin C is the most widely used supplement, and many common foods are "fortified" with vitamin C - including, bizarrely enough, orange juice! As a result, other important nutrients have been neglected, such as zinc.
The Zinc Factor
Zinc deficiency is one of the most common and most serious of mineral deficiencies. Whenever I test my athletes for the first time, roughly 98 percent show up as being zinc deficient. It's so common that I now assume that all my new athletes are zinc deficient until they can prove otherwise. OK, so what's the big deal about being zinc deficient?
First, consider that even a mild zinc deficiency can result in decreased lean body mass and low serum testosterone1 - yes, it's that important!
Thousands of research articles confirm the essential nature of zinc and how significant even a mild deficiency can be. Further, zinc deficiency can manifest rather quickly - in as little as four days in some studies.
One of the most interesting symptoms of zinc deficiency is an altered sense of taste leading to cravings of saltier, sweeter foods.2 A 1992 article in Albion Research Notes stated, "Zinc's participation in over 80 enzyme and hormone functions, including many involved in gene expression, could explain its deficiency's immediate effect on cell growth and repair."3 Since the publication of that article, it has become recognized that zinc is actually involved in more than 300 enzyme processes!4 And there's much more to worry about.
Low zinc levels can decrease sperm output, cause testicular shrinkage, reduce testosterone, slow muscle growth, decrease immune function, cause gastrointestinal problems, slow wound healing and create problems with the skin and appetite.5 If we can assume that you are even mildly zinc deficient, then it is also reasonable to assume that you may be experiencing some of those symptoms, sometimes without even knowing it. Unfortunately, I see way too many athletes work really hard but miss out on gains because they're not addressing one of the most fundamental nutritional factors.
Because zinc is such an essential nutrient, it is crucial that the source of zinc we use is the highest quality available. And to bring zinc levels up, I recommend much higher than normal dosages, so the source of zinc must be carefully considered. Therefore, in an effort to always provide the highest-quality and most effective formulas, I would like to announce a revolutionary supplement called ÜberZinc.
When using high dosages of zinc, I don't want to be concerned with lots of other vitamins or minerals being mega dosed with it, so ÜberZinc is just zinc chelated (i.e., combined) with either aspartate or orotate. These two amino acid chelates have been scientifically proven to be much better absorbed than typical zinc supplements. Continued here
