Healing: The Unexpected Properties of Zinc

The amount of zinc in the human body is so small that textbooks offhandedly record its presence as “a trace.” That trace, though, seems important indeed. Small as it is, the body’s normal zinc supply is a vital factor in growth. If the supply is increased with daily capsules of an inexpensive zinc compound, said a report sent by Air Force Major Walter J. Pories to the International Congress of Military Medicine in Bangkok, tissue grows so quickly that wounds tend to heal far faster than usual.

It was quite by accident that University of Rochester researchers first discovered zinc’s help to healing. The researchers were studying the recovery times of deliberately wounded lab rats, and no one could figure out why one cageful of rodents was healing noticeably faster than the others. Painstaking detective work finally uncovered a possible explanation: the fast-healing rats had been eating food contaminated with compounds of zinc. To check their suspicions, the researchers experimented with 600 rats and confirmed that the presence of zinc in the diet aided rat-tissue regrowth after injury.

Noting that fast-healing humans also had a high zinc content in their bodies, Air Force doctors began trying zinc on patients at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. They worked with men suffering from relatively common and painful pilonidal sinuses (which appear near the base of the spine), the removal of which leaves a cavernous wound. Six .men who had moderately large excisions and got only standard treatment took an average of 62 days for healing. Seven, with wound cavities averaging almost three times as large, healed in only 45 days. The only difference in treatment was that the fast-healing group got a daily capsule containing 200 milligrams of a zinc sulfate salt.

Air Force investigators are now ready to test zinc-propelled healing in severe burn cases, because burn patients are already known to develop a major zinc deficit after injury. If the efficacy of the method is fully confirmed, the investigators expect it may be invaluable for combat wounds, which, with today’s weapons, tend to be larger than ever. The suggested explanation, said Major Pories, is simple. A tiny amount of zinc is present in enzymes, which are essential to the original growth of mammalian organisms and also, it seems, to the regrowth of destroyed or damaged tissues. In any case, said Pories, research may well indicate that extra zinc should be added to the diets of men going into combat—just in case they get hit.