Time trends in dietary Zn intake and occurrence of dietary Zn inadequacy among Chinese adults: data from the China Health and Nutrition Surveys between 2004 and 2011

Highlights

	● The percentage of the surveyed adults with inadequate Zn intake increased from 2004 to 2011.
	● The decrease of dietary Zn intake related to reduced cereal consumption.
	● Dietary Zn intake is related to income but not different between rural and urban.
	● Reverting current trend require region specific policies considering diet patterns.

Abstract

Adequate dietary zinc intake remains a public health challenge in China. Also, there is a lack of information on the relationship between Zn intake and food consumption patterns across provinces and over time. In this study, data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2004–2011 (21,266 individuals) was used to explore associations between dietary Zn intake and sociodemographic factors. Zn intake per person declined from 11.1 mg·d⁻¹ in 2004 to 9.89 mg·d⁻¹ in 2011, with reduction in cereal consumption the greatest contributor to this. However, the reduction resulting from the lower cereal consumption was only partly compensated by an increase in consumption of Zn-rich foods. The percentage of the study population with inadequate Zn intake increased from 23% in 2004 to 37% in 2011. While Zn intake was positively associated with income levels in each survey year, the time trend for all income levels was a gradually reducing Zn intake. In all years, males had an average higher dietary Zn intake, whereas no significant difference was found between living areas. In conclusion, this study shows that dietary Zn inadequacy was high and has increased over the studied period. Remediation could be sought by shifting dietary patterns toward more Zn-dense food or by enhancing Zn concentration through biofortification.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Cereals / food consumption pattern / sociodemographic characteristics / time trend / zinc intake inadequacy

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Supplementary materials

The online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2024584 contains supplementary materials (Tables S1–S4; Figs. S1–S4)

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for financial support of the China Scholarship Council (201913043), Hainan University, Agricultural Science and Research Excellence Talents of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China (202105510311095), and for the access to the China Health and Nutrition Survey data provided by the National Institute for Nutrition and Health, China Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Lu Liu, Alida Melse-Boonstra, Wen-Feng Cong, Mo Li, Fusuo Zhang, Wopke van der Werf, and Tjeerd Jan Stomph declare that they have no conflicts of interest or financial conflicts to disclose. This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

The Author(s) 2024. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)