Tired all the time? Pick up every bug going? Blame your ‘healthy’ diet
AYOGA loving, roadrunning, slim and fit vegetarian, Fiona Campbell was proud of the way she l ooked after her body.
So, why was she the one in the office with a perennial cold, while her burgermunching, couch potato colleagues seemed to sail through winter without a sniffle?
As a full-time business analyst who was also studying in the evenings and weekends to be a nutritionist, she assumed her busy, stressful lifestyle was to blame for her aches and pains. But there were other worrying signs, too.
‘ I had lost my appetite and was seriously lacking in energy. I would often feel sleepy in the middle of the afternoon and be desperate to go to bed as early as 8pm or 9pm,’ says Fiona, 40, from Bristol.
‘I used to do yoga and go running three times a week, but it became an effort to do any exercise. When I did, it took me so much longer to recover.’
Cuts and bruises took double the usual time to heal and there was a change in her mood, too.
‘My boyfriend at the time kept saying I didn’t seem to be my usual, sparkly self and he was right. I was irritable and demotivated — the opposite of my normal bouncy, happy self.
‘Then, when I started to feel shivery and achy, I couldn’t believe it as I had only just emerged from a previous bout of illness.’
After her fifth cold in a year, Fiona went to her GP, who gave her a full body MoT, testing her liver and kidney function, and blood pressure. But nothing out of the ordinary came up.
‘It was frustrating because I knew something was wrong with me,’ says Fiona.
As she was in her final year of studies at the College of Naturopathic Medicine, London, she wondered if she was missing something nutritionally and asked a colleague to do a blood test. It revealed low levels of zinc in her bloodstream.
With symptoms ranging from hair loss and depression to eczema and impaired immune function, low levels of this essential mineral — which is found predominantly in red meat and oysters, but also in lower amounts in poultry, nuts and green, leafy vegetables — could be having a serious impact on the nation’s health.
The World Health Organisation estimates that two billion people worldwide are deficient in zinc, and it has been suggested that in the West health- conscious lifestyles could be to blame.
FOr while experts have been preaching at us for years to eat less red meat and more vegetables, heeding this advice has reduced our zinc consumption.
In children, this could seriously affect essential growth and development, while a compromised immune function in adults can affect day-to-day health, making you more susceptible to colds, viruses and the flu.
‘Zinc has an important role in our bodies as it is essential for growth and development,’ says Nicola Lowe, professor of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Central Lancashire.
‘It is required for making the proteins for our cells and tissues; supports cell division, which happens as we grow; and contributes to new DNA, which holds the genetic code in our cells.
‘These are all required for the building of new tissue.
‘It can affect hair and nail growth and the strength of your bones. It also shores up your i mmune function, which relies on zinc to make white blood cells to protect us from infection.
‘Without enough zinc, you can suffer all kinds of problems, from hair loss and skin lesions to a reduction in your sense of taste and appetite.’
The recommended dietary allowance for zinc for adults is 7 mg a day for women and 9.5 mg for men — as a guide, a serving of beef mince contains half of your daily requirement. Because the body has no specialised system to store zinc, daily intake is necessary to keep levels up. red meat and oysters are the richest source of zinc (one oyster contains 5.9 mg), though it is also present in smaller quantities in poultry, nuts, beans and other types of seafood.
Ironically, strict vegetarians such as Fiona — whose diet consisted of wholegrains, pulses, fruit and vegetables — are most at risk.
Not only are they not eating zincrich red meat or seafood, but vegetables and wholegrains contain compounds that are kn o wn as phytates, which bind to zinc, making it impossible for our gut enzymes to break it down. The zinc simply passes straight through the body.
After she was diagnosed with a zinc deficiency, Fiona started eating meat once a week and taking a daily multi-nutrient supplement, which included 10 mg of zinc.
She also made sure to soak beans, grains and seeds in water several hours before cooking them, as this helps to break down the phytates and helps the body to absorb zinc.
‘It took a month for me to get my energy back and feel like my old self again,’ she says. Now in a new relationship and qualified as a nutritionist, Fiona feels she i s back to peak fitness. Professor J ohn Beattie, head of the Micronutrients Group at the rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at t he University of Aberdeen, says zinc deficiency is more of a problem in developing countries where there is limited access to meat. But he is also concerned about food trends and detoxes here.
‘It’s important to eat red meat two or three times a week, which is against much of the current dietary advice,’ he says.
‘Beef is the best source of zinc, while cheaper cuts of meat such as stewing steak are higher in zinc content than more expensive cuts such as rump. Then comes lamb and pork, with cheese, eggs and milk coming further down the dietary list.’
Cutting out complete f ood groups, even for a short time, can cause problems, as Sallyanne Waterman discovered.
In an effort to slim down before last Christmas, the 40-year- old celebrity agent from Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, was cutting out nearly everything.
‘I was on a meat, wheat and dairy detox to get rid of some of my wobbly bits before the start of the festive season,’ she says.
‘But I kept coming down with one cold after another. I was so tired that I could hardly drag myself out of bed in the mornings to take my son to school.’
As well as a constant sore throat, she also noticed her hair had started to thin and her nails felt like paper.
‘Before the detox, I didn’t have a particularly healthy diet,’ she says. ‘ I was always running f rom business meetings to evening events, grabbing a takeaway or bag of chips rather than taking the time to cook a meal, much to my husband Jeff ’s dismay.’
A blood test by her GP showed she had low levels of zinc. Sallyanne immediately altered her diet and started taking a daily multinutrient supplement.
‘I still don’t like to eat much red meat,’ she says. ‘But I have chicken and dairy and, with the supplement, it’s made all the difference.
‘My hair is thick, my nails are strong and I haven’t had a sore throat since.’
With symptoms that are similar to those associated with stress, zinc deficiency can easily be ignored in adults.
‘In children, the primary sign of zinc deficiency is a reduced growth rate, which is more noticeable than getting a few more coughs and colds,’ says Professor Beattie.
SO, IT is important to be vigilant about including zinc in your diet and that of your children. ‘Only 0.003 per cent of our body is zinc, but without it, we wouldn’t be alive,’ he says.
‘It’s an integral trace metal and without it every biochemical pathway i n our bodies could not function. Like a staple making loops in a ribbon, it holds together the proteins in our bodies so they can do their job.’
Professor Nicola Lowe agrees: ‘Zinc is considered a Cinderella subject and is less known and talked about than iron.
‘But it would be a mistake to overlook its importance. It is an essential nutrient that plays a vital role in many body functions. Without it we would not survive.’