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  4. Regarding the zinc unit, I have two questions. Do you rate the zinc tally test as a way of determining zinc deficiency and/or tracking progress of supplementing?

Regarding the zinc unit, I have two questions. Do you rate the zinc tally test as a way of determining zinc deficiency and/or tracking progress of supplementing?

Chris Kresser: I’ll answer that first. Yes. This is a test that some of you might be familiar with where the patient puts the solution in their mouth, and if they experience a strong metallic taste, then they are zinc sufficient, and if they don’t experience that, then they are zinc deficient. There’s not a lot of research behind the zinc tally test, but it’s been awhile since I’ve looked at the research. A couple years ago I looked into this, and there were a couple of studies that actually showed a pretty good correlation between the zinc tally results and serum zinc levels in pregnant women was, if I recall, the population that was being studied. I would tend to favor the testing that we talked about in the unit, but at least the few studies that I did review did show a correlation between a tally test and serum levels.

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