Kulwara Meksawan^{1, 2}, Urairut Sermsri¹, Pithi Chanvorachote^{2, 3,}

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and metabolic syndrome are shown to link with the high risk of several inflammatory disorders and cancers. Impaired production of transmembrane TNF-α, a cytokine that exerts potent antitumor activity in DM patients has been reported, and this may be one of the possible causes of increased cancer risk in these patients. This study investigated the effect of 8-week zinc supplementation on TNF-α in type 2 diabetic patients with metabolic syndrome. Seventeen patients were randomly divided into 2 groups, the zinc group (n=8) supplemented with zinc sulfate equivalent to 30 mg of elemental zinc/day and the placebo group (n=9). The present study revealed that zinc supplementation in the DM patients with metabolic syndrome for 8 weeks could significantly increase the production of transmembrane TNF-α on monocytes. While the plasma and lymphocyte-derived TNF-α levels were not significantly altered in the zinc and placebo groups, higher levels of monocyte-bound TNF-α were observed in zinc-receiving group. Because functional transmembrane TNF-α was shown to implicate in body’s defense mechanisms, these findings suggested that zinc supplementation may benefit body’s immune response against infection and cancer in DM and metabolic syndrome subjects.

transmembrane TNF-α, zinc, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, monocyte