Growth of infants fed a zinc supplemented formula.

Some infant milk formulae have a lower zinc content than the original cow's milk. Zinc is a nutrient necessary for growth and, in this double-blind controlled study, the effects of supplementing Similac with iron with 4 mg/liter of zinc were determined. By 6 months of age, mean growth increments for the supplemented male infants were 2.

Zinc nutrition of preschool children in the Denver Head Start program.

Low income diets provide relatively little zinc. This study was designed to evaluate the zinc nutritional states of 74 low income preschool children enrolled in the Denver Head Start Program. Zinc is necessary for normal growth, hence children were selected on the bases of low height percentiles.

Zinc therapy of acrodermatitis enteropathica.

The therapeutic effect of orally administered zinc was evaluated in an adult woman with acrodermatitis enteropathica. When she was off therapy and in clinical relapse the plasma zinc concentration (10 mug per 100 ml), serum alkaline phosphatase (3 1U per liter) and urine zinc excretion rate (39 mug per 24 hours) were extremely low. Di-iodohydroxyquin therapy was accompanied by a modest increase in plasma zinc concentrations.

Wilson's disease: identification of an abnormal copper-binding protein.

The metal-binding protein metallothionein was isolated from the livers of Wilson's disease patients and control subjects. The metals were removed from the native protein to produce the apoprotein, and copperthionein was prepared by equilibrium dialysis. Copperthionein from Wilson's disease patients had a copper-binding constant four times as great as that of the protein from control subjects.