In the journey to a healthy gut, you’ll come across an occasional need to support the gut lining. Many professionals turn to the GI benefits of zinc carnosine first.
It acts as a physical barrier to unwanted compounds getting into the body, as a training ground for the immune system, and home and feeding ground to the trillions of good microbes in your gut. Because of the many roles of a healthy mucosal lining of the stomach and gut, some clients may need to apply their focus here instead of going directly to prebiotics and probiotics.
A central approach to supporting the gut lining is zinc carnosine supplementation.
When you take zinc carnosine, you enjoy the benefits of the unique combination, yet also the benefits of zinc and carnosine individually.
Most health professionals and individuals alike pigeon-hole zinc carnosine as a healing support for the stomach and intestinal lining. While this narrow understanding is for good reason, zinc and carnosine are capable of doing much more than advertised.
Zinc Benefits – More than Leaky Gut
Zinc is involved in over 70 enzymatic reactions in the body, is considered a “gatekeeper of immunity”, and is involved in detoxification systems in the body. It is known to support ulcer healing and taste sensation too.
When you supplement with zinc, it can compete with copper and cause a deficiency with increasing intake. The generally accepted ratio to prevent problems is 15mg zinc to 1mg copper. Take into account all supplements and sources of zinc as a few mg here and there can add up. Be mindful that too much zinc may contribute to feelings of nausea – and this may be mitigated by taking balancing copper support.
When zinc is called for in a protocol, my go-to product Zinc Copper Balance. When I want to target the mucosal healing benefits of zinc, I’ll turn to the synergy found in Zinc L Carnosine by Integrative Therapeutics.
While zinc status is incredibly important for important body functions (most immune responses depend on zinc), the carnosine component is less appreciated
Carnosine Benefits
Carnosine supports antioxidant benefits, blood sugar benefits, and stress benefits, and can help bind unwanted compounds from the body. It may help target zinc benefits in the brain as well. It may be neuroprotective against a number of neurodegenerative diseases. It is known to help buffer lactic acid and ward against fatigue too.
Here are more of the proposed benefits of carnosine in the body:
Image source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5852723/
Zinc Carnosine Supplement
Zinc carnosine has unique antioxidant properties that target mucosal tissues. It also supports stress resilience, not just for emotional stress, but the physical stress of high-intensity exercise that can damage an otherwise healthy gut.
When I supplement with zinc carnosine, I’ll use the Pepzin GI form found in Zinc Carnosine by Integrative Therapeutics, or as part of a gut lining support formula like GI Benefits by DaVinci Labs. Both include 75mg of zinc carnosine, and a general guideline is to take 75mg twice a day, preferably away from food to optimize utilization in the body.
When supplementing with 75mg of zinc carnosine, it provides ~16mg of elemental zinc. At twice a day, the total zinc comes to 32mg. If zinc carnosine seems to have side effects like nausea, it may be a sign of a copper deficiency. I balance the intake close to the 15:1 ratio using Copper Glycinate by Pure Encapsulations (2mg copper supplementation per capsule).
Alternatively, if someone is taking one serving of zinc carnosine per day (~75mg/16mg of elemental zinc), one might take the 2mg serving of copper glycinate every other day to provide an average of 1mg/day.
You can personalize a plan in this way based on the sources of zinc in your supplement protocol.
