Hi everyone,
I’m currently taking Zinc L-Carnosine (mostly for gut health), but I’m curious about what form of zinc you all prefer for general longevity?
Are you taking picolinate, glycinate, or sticking to something else? Would love to hear about your experiences, dosages, and any specific benefits you’ve noticed.
Thanks!
Zinc is easy to overdose.
To piggy back on what @John_Hemming said, I always prefer to take a zinc/copper pill, to avoid the overdose issue. I don’t pay attention for form as much, but gluconate is one I’ve used before for zinc, and copper bisglynate has better absobption.
Same here… zinc/copper combo supplement.
Whats the rationale for this combo? They compete each others… so usually it is recomended to use them separate appart
For convenience, and because formulations usually will have the right ratio. Nothing stops you from taking separately if desired. But taking either one alone will deplete the other one, and taking more of the other without adjusting the amount for the other one will also lead to depletion. Most clinical guidelines and supplement formulations aim for roughly a 10:1 to 15:1 ratio of zinc to copper.
Depends on the diet. Most Americans get plenty of zinc in their diet. But those who follow a plant based diet, especially vegan adjacent, can easily get very little zinc, meanwhile nuts, seeds, mushrooms, whole grains, legumes, plants in general and other elements (cacao, chocolate etc.) of plant centered diets are rich in copper. Folks on such diets are replete with copper, but quite often lacking in zinc (there’s also the issue of absorption of zinc from a plant matrix), further complicated by external factors such as copper based cookware, zinc lozenges, water mineral content, medications etc. Bottom line for folks on such a diet is that modest supplementation with just zinc makes eminent sense. That’s my approach. My diet has plenty of copper, and I do not wish to add to it with a bolus of elemental copper outside of the food matrix through a supplement. Meanwhile I get much less zinc in my diet. So I supplement with a modest dose of 10-15mg zinc gluconate or bisglycinate (depending on availability) no more than 3 times a week. There are many circumstances where there is a sudden surge in demand for zinc (immune system events etc.), so I am much more focused on avoiding possible zinc deficiencies than copper (for which there isn’t an equivalent surge in demand). That said, I don’t want to overload on either of those two metals (excess zinc or copper - negative for longevity as far I can see), so I limit myself to a modest zinc supplementation based on the totality of my diet. Obviously, it makes sense to get some measurements of these through tests to establish both status as well as ratio (copper:zinc 0.7-1.00). YMMV.
For some diets, LE’s “Only Trace Minerals” is a convenient packaging. I have been taking it for the past several years but generally not every day.
Trace Mineral Amount Per Serving
Zinc [as OptiZinc® zinc monomethionine] 20 mg
Copper [as copper bisglycinate chelate] 2 mg
Manganese [as manganese sulfate] 2 mg
Chromium [as chromium nicotinate glycinate chelate] 400 mcg
Molybdenum [as molybdenum glycinate chelate] 250 mcg
Boron [as boron citrate, aspartate, glycinate complex] 3 mg
Vanadyl sulfate [providing 750 mcg vanadium] 3.75 mg