Role of zinc in lipid and fatty acid metabolism and in membranes.

This review addresses the role of zinc in the metabolism of lipids including cholesterol, phospholipids, triglyceride, fatty acids, lipoproteins, and essential fatty acids and it discusses to a limited extent the role of zinc in membranes as well as zinc's known effects on receptors. The evidence which is compiled demonstrates two main features of the interactions of zinc in lipid and fatty acid metabolism; 1) that zinc intimately affects many aspects of lipid metabolism through established enzymes but also has modulatory effects whose mechanism is not obvious or established, and 2) many of the observations are superficially contradictory and do not lend themselves to ready explanation. These are the features of a field whose time has come and which beckons further research to clarify these issues.