The choices of supplies and procedures, i.e. the pre-analytic variables, that researchers make when measuring zinc concentration from blood samples can be critical for the accuracy and precision of the study.
Blood draw site, blood matrix, blood collection tube type, processing time, and holding temperature were all found to have small but significant impacts on zinc assessment taken in a group of healthy adults with most other technical variables controlled. For similar reasons, caution is warranted when comparing studies that use different procedural methods to measure zinc concentration in plasma or serum. Read more in this new publication in PLOS One.
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