Every cell in the body draws most of its energy from an unbroken chain of chemical reactions that leave carbon dioxide behind as a byproduct. That gas has to be cleared out of the tissue continuously, or the overall makeup of the body's fluids won't stay stable.
Several organs and enzyme systems share this ongoing balancing act. For one of the trace elements involved, zinc, the European Union has authorized a health claim on normal acid-base metabolism, based on a scientific opinion from EFSA.
The next section describes exactly where this trace element steps in — and what the authorized wording actually says.
Zinc and the EU-reviewed wording on normal acid-base metabolism.
See the LexiconZinc belongs to the group of trace elements the body can't make on its own; the only way it arrives is through food. A small share of it sits bound in the active site of certain enzymes, without which particular metabolic steps couldn't run at their usual pace.
Some metals take on a role in enzymes that involves exchanging electrons, switching their own charge as they do it — iron and copper are two examples. Zinc belongs to a different group: its ion carries the same charge in practically every biological reaction it takes part in, and doesn't join in that kind of exchange at all.
Inside enzymes, the zinc ion takes on a different job instead. It holds a water molecule in place at one fixed spot in the enzyme, in a position that leaves that water molecule chemically more ready to react.
Specialists call the enzyme in question carbonic anhydrase. Inside it, the water molecule that zinc has set up reacts with carbon dioxide. What comes out of that reaction is a water-soluble molecule, bicarbonate, along with a single proton released in the process. Depending on what the tissue needs at that moment, the step can run either way.
Carbonic anhydrase isn't a one-off: different versions of the enzyme take on comparable jobs in quite different corners of the body — in red blood cells, for instance, or in the lining of the stomach. That spread across locations changes nothing about the legal wording itself: it stays short and continues to refer only to zinc and to normal acid-base metabolism as a whole. Zinc contributes to normal acid-base metabolism. EU-authorized wording · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012.
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