Patriot Health Digest
Zinc is an essential micronutrient and trace mineral, which is most known for its critical role in your immune system. Now, given how immunity has been on everyone’s mind, it only makes sense you could be considering taking a zinc supplement.
To meet your baseline needs, the average zinc for adult men should be 11 milligrams.
Zinc is available in some foods such as oysters, poultry, red meat, fortified cereals, nuts, beans, whole grains, and dairy products.
That said, there is also a zinc gap in many people. Considering food sources alone, 15% of American adults are not getting their needed amounts of zinc. Because this statistic comes from national data, that means that around 50 million people in America have a zinc gap.
If you fall into this category of people, you will want to ensure you are getting the most from it. In addition to choosing the optimal type of zinc—it is important to consider the time you take your zinc supplement, how often you take it, and what else you are taking with your zinc.
When is best to take zinc: morning or night?
A lot of this comes down to your personal preference. It doesn’t matter what time you take a zinc supplement. No matter what time, your body metabolizes zinc in the same way.
For some people, taking zinc with an empty stomach can lead to them being queasy, and this can also be true for people in the morning. A chelated zinc is somewhat more gentle, but even with this, it is an important personal consideration, as with most nutritional issues.
There is some data to support the idea that taking zinc at night could help with your sleep quality, a professor of medicine at UCLA Health. One study in older Italians who had a difficult time sleeping discovered that people who took a combination of magnesium, melatonin and zinc one hour before going to bed reported “considerably better” sleep than people who only took a placebo.
Another double-blind study on sleep discovered that people had better sleep when they took 220mg zinc sulfate capsules (i.e., 50 mg of zinc) every 72 hours for one month.
Author: Blake Ambrose
