After posting the article Cadmium Levels in Vegans, Zinc Supplements and Alzheimer’s Disease, Ginny Messina let me know that there is a concern about cadmium contamination of zinc supplements.

I researched the issue and added the following section to VeganHealth.org’s article Cadmium:

In 2001, Krone et al tested six zinc supplements from Seattle area health food stores to see if they contained cadmium (1). According to the authors, “Because the chemical properties of [zinc] and cadmium (Cd) are so similar, these two elements invariably occur together in nature.”

They found that the single zinc supplements had very low levels of cadmium whereas the multi-mineral supplements had enough that taking the RDA of zinc would provide up to 2 µg of cadmium (20% of the daily limit recommended by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA)). It also happens that three of the supplements with low levels of cadmium were in the form of zinc gluconate whereas none of the multi-mineral preparations were the gluconate form. So, it could be that zinc gluconate is unlikely to have much cadmium or that single zinc supplements are unlikely.

According to their website, the supplement manufacturer Kirkman, from Oregon, does a rigorous job testing their supplements for contamination of cadmium and other impurities (more info). They also have an article on their site, Cadmium: A Serious Heavy Metal and Topic. They ship outside the United States.

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References

1. Krone CA, Wyse EJ, Ely JT. Cadmium in zinc-containing mineral supplements. Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2001 Jul;52(4):379-82. | link

Wow – my last real post was on June 27th. But I have not fallen off the face of the earth – rather, it was right around that time that a reader brought my attention to a disconcerting study from 2006 which showed vegans in the Slovak Republic to have significantly higher cadmium levels than other diets groups. This study set me off on quite a journey that led to examining the role of zinc in Alzheimer’s Disease, of all things, and ended up strengthening my suspicions that vegans might benefit from zinc supplementation. In this case, not only because vegans can sometimes have low zinc intakes, but also to help reduce any problem caused by higher cadmium and copper intakes.

I have added this information to VeganHealth.org in an article on Cadmium. The article is too long to reproduce here, so I hope you will click through and give it a read.

I was disappointed that I had not previously heard of the study from the Slovak Republic, but these days I get notifications for any studies on vegetarians or vegans that get added to PubMed, so hopefully none will eascape my notice again.

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Please share and/or like my posts! Thanks!

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