Zinc is important in every part of the
body and the reason for that is that
zinc is important in the function of
proteins which are the building blocks of the body.
If this 10 pence coin here
was a piece of zinc it would actually
fulfill your needs for zinc for two years.
So, we don't need much zinc to maintain our health.
About a third of the world's population is zinc deficient
and even people in the UK are suspected
to be zinc deficient particularly, for example,
vegetarians who may be at risk of
zinc deficiency because they're not
eating zinc rich foods like red meat.
Over the long term zinc deficiency is
not good for your health and so what we
hope to do is to improve the zinc
content of foods and at that James Hutton Institute
they have produced a potato which
is enriched with zinc and we want
to test the health benefits of these
potatoes in a study with volunteers.
We are looking for healthy man aged 18 to 70
and recruitment is starting now and
it will continue until early 2018.
The study is four weeks in duration and the
for the first two weeks you'll
be eating a low zinc diet that is low-zinc foods
and the reason for that is
that it makes sure that all the volunteers have a
roughly equivalent level of zinc in
their bodies and then for the second two
weeks you'll be eating a normal diet with the potatoes.
Volunteers will come in in the
early morning for a couple of hours and
will for example give blood samples or
have an injection of a small amount of
zinc by which we can measure the
metabolism of zinc in the body and also
we will collect the urine samples from you.
We will give all your food and also
reimburse your expenses but mostly you
will get information about your own
health which is important to you
obviously and you will for example get
information about your eye health because
you'll visit the department of ophthalmology and
get an eye examination. You'll get
information about your body fat because
you will sit in a machine
called the BodPod which measures
your body composition and you will also
measure your resting metabolic rate by
lying and relaxing on a bed for a few minutes.
The state-of-the-art facilities
here our second to none and the staff
here are professional, welcoming and
you'll be treated well, The study itself
was approved by the North of Scotland
Research Ethics Committee which is part
of NHS grampian.
Studies like this depend on people
like you deciding to help us so we'd
like to thank you very much for watching
this video and for considering to be a
volunteer for this study. Thank you.
