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Biotech / Medical : QGLY - Funny Name Great Product. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jimbo Cobb who wrote (7130)	1/5/1998 7:38:00 PM
From: Mike Boiko	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8960

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Zinc supplements improve some measures of immune function, while vitamin A supplements blunt others in a study of institutionalized but relatively healthy older adults. The study appears in this month's issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Italian researchers evaluated the health and nutritional status of 178 nursing home residents and then randomized 118 of them into four treatment groups. One group received 800 micrograms daily of vitamin A, a second group received 2.5 milligrams zinc sulfate, a third group received both vitamin A and zinc, and a fourth group received placebos (inactive "dummy" pills) for three months. Dr. Cristina Fortes of the National Institute of Health in Rome and colleagues report that zinc supplementation increased some measures of immune function -- namely, zinc appeared to stimulate cell-mediated immune response by boosting the number of CD4 T-cells and the number of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes -- while vitamin A supplementation negatively affected other measures of immune function, including a decrease in the number of CD4 cells. Previous studies have shown that zinc can cause regrowth of the thymus, an organ in the upper chest that usually shrinks after puberty. The thymus is associated with the development of immune cells. Fortes and colleagues say they cannot explain vitamin A's negative effects, because there is evidence that vitamin A improves immune function. The investigators speculate that zinc may interfere with vitamin A uptake, and wonder if higher doses of vitamin A might overcome this effect. SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (1998:46:19-26)