Vitamins and minerals make people's bodies work properly. Although you get vitamins and minerals from the foods you eat every day, some foods have more vitamins and minerals than others. People go through a lot of physical changes — including growth and puberty — during their teenage years. Eating right during this time is especially important because the body needs a variety of vitamins and minerals to grow, develop, and stay healthy.

Zinc is important for normal growth, cell division, the break down of carbohydrates, sexual development, strong immunity, and wound healing. This element is second only to iron in its concentration in the body. Zinc is also needed for the senses of smell and taste.

A simple signal of a zinc deficiency is the presence of white spots on your finger nails.  Stress depletes zinc, and I find I can usually date a stressful occurrence by the whereabouts of the spots on my nails.  A more scientific test is to use a small amount of liquid zinc, and hold it in your mouth for 30 seconds.  If it tastes terrible and you immediately spit it out, your zinc levels are fine.  But if you are depleted, the liquid will taste like water to you.

Two recent advances in managing diarrhoeal disease – newly formulated oral rehydration salts (ORS) containing lower concentrations of glucose and salt, and success in using zinc supplementation – can drastically reduce the number of child deaths. The new methods, used in addition to prevention and treatment of dehydration with appropriate fluids, breastfeeding, continued feeding and selective use of antibiotics, will reduce the duration and severity of diarrhoeal episodes and lower their incidence. Families and communities are key to achieving the goals set for managing the disease by making the new recommendations routine practice in the home and health facility. It is noted that, following the WHO review, the ORS used for treating dehydration should be low osmolarity ORS. Furthermore the treatment for DEHYDRATION has changed to include zinc, as follows:

1. Give extra fluid
2. Give zinc supplements
3. Continue feeding
4. When to return
5. Remind the mother to give zinc supplements for the full 14 days
6. If the child also has a severe classification, refer URGENTLY with the mother giving frequent sips of ORS on the way. Advise mother to continue breastfeeding.

The cold-fighting reputation of zinc has had its ups and downs. That's because many zinc studies — both those that find the mineral beneficial and those that do not — are flawed. In studies with positive results, zinc seemed most effective taken as a lozenge or nasal spray within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms. Taking zinc with food reduced side effects, including a bad taste and nausea.

There is evidence that some micronutrient supplements, e.g. vitamin A, zinc and iron, can produce adverse outcomes in HIV-infected populations. Zinc gluconate is a popular form for the delivery of zinc as a dietary supplement.

Zinc also supports normal growth and development during pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence, and helps sperm develop and is needed for ovulation and fertilization. Maternal zinc deficiency can slow fetal growth. Growth rate improves in children with mild to moderate growth failure and who also have a zinc deficiency when given zinc.

30% to 50% of alcoholics are zinc deficient. Alcohol decreases the absorption of zinc and increases loss of zinc in urine. Further, many alcoholics do not eat an acceptable variety or amount of food, so their dietary intake of zinc may be inadequate.

People with liver cirrhosis, malabsorption syndromes, and Down's syndrome may also be prone to zinc deficiencies.

Zinc is also believed to play an important role when used in connection with the disease condition (esp. due to deficiency) such as;
Acne, Childhood intelligence, Contact dermatitis (using zinc sulfate) , Down's syndrome,Infertility (male) , Night blindness, Wilson's disease (by interfering with body's ability to use essential mineral copper), prostate problems, diabetes, fatigue, poor wound healing, poor apetite and high cholesterol.

A study shown ,when zinc-deficient children received zinc supplements, childhood infection rates plummeted. We've known that in some children, giving zinc has prevented colds and flu. In this report, diarrheal illnesses dropped by 25% and pneumonia dropped by over 40% (making it more powerful at preventing pneumonia than any other intervention to date).

In the developing world, daily zinc supplements can reduce the risk of death in children aged 1 to 4, but they do not provide any significant benefit for babies under 1, U.S. researchers report.

Zinc, which is one of the most plentiful trace elements in the body, is believed to play an important role in healthy immune system function.

The study, by a team from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, included more than 42,500 children in the East African nation of Zanzibar. Half the children received daily zinc supplements (5 milligrams for infants, 10 milligrams for children 12 months and older), while the other half received a placebo pill.

Overall, children who took the zinc supplements were 7 percent less likely to die than those who took the placebo. In children aged 12 to 48 months, those taking zinc supplements were 18 percent less likely to die.

"This large trial demonstrates that the benefits of zinc supplementation include mortality reduction in addition to the reduction in cases of pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria that we found in previous trials," study senior author Dr. Robert Black, professor and chairman of the Bloomberg School's department of international health, said in a prepared statement.

"While further work is needed to evaluate higher dose effects, recommendations for use of zinc as a preventive strategy needs to consider the collective evidence of the effect on growth, morbidity and mortality, which would suggest benefit in children age 6 months and up," lead author Sunil Sazawal, an associate professor in the department of international health, said in a prepared statement.

High-protein foods contain high amounts of zinc. Beef, pork, and lamb contain more zinc than fish. The dark meat of a chicken has more zinc than the light meat. Other good sources of zinc are peanuts, peanut butter, and legumes.