> the fungus makes it way to a non-immunocompromised brain.
Something I'm looking at the moment is the role zinc plays in things like membranes and blood brain barrier.
When looking at how much zinc is used through out the body which combined with one of these, cysteine, histidine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, with the first two largely involved in structural applications ranging from zinc fingers to organelle stability, cell stability and membrane health, it looks like the RDA is woefully inadequate.
The problem is a blood test wont show zinc status as its so tightly controlled in serum, so if its measured and it shows a problem, its going to be an extreme problem. However if you suffer a head injury, the damaged brain cells will dump zinc straight away into the blood so that the neurons take up glutamate which then become neuro toxic leading to cell death.
For example, if you take vitamin D3 supps, it needs a zinc finger, so taking VitD3 with zinc, is useful other wise you could be wasting your time taking VitD3 if there is simply not enough zinc in the body, which can explain why some people dont respond to vit D3 supps.
If the zinc status is low, there are so many vitamins and minerals that are just not worth doing.
But mega dosing so many vitamins and minerals can create a zinc deficiency, like mega dosing vit A or D, or even nicotinic acid (b3) to compound things.
Its not been unheard of taking a few hundred mg's a day, with documented therapeutic doses at 2grams a day! There is also disputes over whether an increased zinc intake even causes copper deficiency's. Studies are mixed, so typical medical caution is order of the day with regard to high doses of zinc, but that caution can contribute to medical conditions.
The digestive system has no restriction on the uptake of zinc, unlike iron which uses hepcidin, but things like fibre, phytates, tannins, found in vegetables, will all bind to zinc in the gut very easily reducing its effectiveness, and then there is calcium, iron which is known to compete, with phosphate also looking like a similar competitor of zinc.
B6 is recommended for any high intakes of minerals, it can be used to reduce the incidence of sideroblastic anemia and peripheral neuropathy amongst many things.
The Nicotinic Acid form of B3 works with every enzyme in the body via Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD) and Adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
But as there is no reliable way to measure zinc status, things like an enlarged spleen (splenomegaly), cancer, diabetes, and numerous more disease states and illness could indicate an inadequate zinc status. Put another way, Zinc deficiency is found in so many illnesses including depression.
> > weren't able to properly diagnose until they did a biopsy on his brain.
Did they measure the surrounding tissue around the brain and bone mineral density, to check if the blood brain barrier was intact, and immune response optimal?
If its any consolation, fungi can be sniffed as a smell and end up in the sinuses where they can contribute to mental health issues, but these only show up in autopsy's, and biopsy's!
When zinc acetate at 75mg was used to shorten the common cold, its typically portrayed that it shortened the cold duration by a couple of days and its not really worth taking.
When looking at the studies, the common cold had a typical 8.3day duration but with a total 75mg of zinc acetate spread over a day, reduced it to a 4.5day duration. Take into account the time it takes for the immune cells to respond, with or with out supplement, and that zinc duration could be reduced to under 4 days, even fewer days if there was adequate zinc status before infection, making it much more significant and effective than its currently portrayed!
So, should we be re evaluating our zinc intake to see improvements in health, to avoid situations like this?