Best Form Of Zinc For Oral Coating As A Mitigator For Colds/Viruses?

Sumbody

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Oct 23, 2018
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It seems that zinc acetate and zinc gluconate are most often used in lozenges etc.

But are there other forms that may be more effective for say, breaking open a capsule and pouring the powder onto the back of the tongue?

Or perhaps mixing with some honey to coat the mouth and throat better?

I typically use Zinc Picolinate for this, as that is just what I have on hand, and it has worked quite well if applied at the onset of a headache, or scratchy feeling in the throat, runny nose etc.

I rarely get sick, but can usually tell at the onslaught of something, and applying zinc powder orally within the mouth/throat has typically resulted in overnight symptom relief for me.
 

Geo

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Aug 5, 2019
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zinc sulfate, sold as zincatest in europe is very convenient
 

Perry Staltic

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Dec 14, 2020
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Zinc acetate may be the best because it releases Zn ions better.

Eby hypothesised that zinc acetate might be a better constituent for lozenges than zinc gluconate, since acetate binds zinc ions less strongly.7,8 Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the difference between acetate and gluconate has practical importance at the clinical level.
A previous meta-analysis showed that five low-dose trials of zinc lozenges (<75 mg/day zinc) uniformly found no effect on the duration of colds. Three high-dose (>75 mg/day) zinc acetate trials found a 42% reduction in the duration of colds, whereas five high-dose zinc gluconate trials found just a 20% reduction in cold duration. Such a difference was consistent with Eby’s proposal; however, there was significant heterogeneity in the five high-dose zinc gluconate studies but not in the three high-dose zinc acetate studies.2 Thus, there may be factors that could confound the comparison of the efficacy of zinc acetate and zinc gluconate.


This guy doesn't recommend zinc picolinate because it is excreted more in the urine.

 

cjm

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Jul 2, 2013
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Zinc gluconate as in Cold-Eeze might be less effective compared to zinc acetate but if the question is about coating, Cold-Eeze coats my throat so quickly I rarely finish a lozenge in one sitting (one sucking?)

For what it's worth, Cold-Eeze is actually zinc gluconate glycine. I'm not enough of a smart person to do the maths but it seems like there is a not insignificant amount of glycine in each lozenge.

"The amount of glycine added can range anywhere from two to twenty moles of glycine for each mole of zinc gluconate (US Patent 4,684,528, Claim 1)."
Zinc gluconate

"Active lozenges contained 23 mg zinc with 10 mol glycine/ mol of zinc gluconate as flavour-mask in 4.5 g sucrose and corn syrup hard-boiled candy lozenges."
Zinc ion availability—the determinant of efficacy

Cold-Eeze has ~13mg of zinc per serving.

EDIT: I'm going to take a wild stab at the math:

Molar mass of Zn = 65.38 g/mol
Molar mass of glycine = 75.067g/mol

Glycine/zinc molar ratio = 1.148

Taking the range of "two to twenty moles of glycine for each mole of zinc gluconate", if there are 13.3mg of zinc per lozenge, you would multiply by 2 and 20 and get the range.

1.148 (ratio gly/zn) * 13.3 (zinc) * 2 (multiplier) -- 1.148 * 13.3 * 20

Glycine in zinc gluconate glycine = 30.54mg-305.4mg

I might be wrong and that might be useless information :)
 
Last edited:

frannybananny

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Apr 26, 2018
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703
Zinc gluconate as in Cold-Eeze might be less effective compared to zinc acetate but if the question is about coating, Cold-Eeze coats my throat so quickly I rarely finish a lozenge in one sitting (one sucking?)

For what it's worth, Cold-Eeze is actually zinc gluconate glycine. I'm not enough of a smart person to do the maths but it seems like there is a not insignificant amount of glycine in each lozenge.

"The amount of glycine added can range anywhere from two to twenty moles of glycine for each mole of zinc gluconate (US Patent 4,684,528, Claim 1)."
Zinc gluconate

"Active lozenges contained 23 mg zinc with 10 mol glycine/ mol of zinc gluconate as flavour-mask in 4.5 g sucrose and corn syrup hard-boiled candy lozenges."
Zinc ion availability—the determinant of efficacy

Cold-Eeze has ~13mg of zinc per serving.

EDIT: I'm going to take a wild stab at the math:

Molar mass of Zn = 65.38 g/mol
Molar mass of glycine = 75.067g/mol

Glycine/zinc molar ratio = 1.148

Taking the range of "two to twenty moles of glycine for each mole of zinc gluconate", if there are 13.3mg of zinc per lozenge, you would multiply by 2 and 20 and get the range.

1.148 (ratio gly/zn) * 13.3 (zinc) * 2 (multiplier) -- 1.148 * 13.3 * 20

Glycine in zinc gluconate glycine = 30.54mg-305.4mg

I might be wrong and that might be useless information :)
soooo... is this amount of glycine good or bad?
 
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