Effect of preventive zinc supplementation on linear growth in children under 5 years of age in developing countries: a meta-analysis of studies for input to the lives saved tool.

What It Covers

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as a meta-analysis.

Zinc plays an important role in cellular growth, cellular differentiation and metabolism.

The results of previous meta-analyses evaluating effect of zinc supplementation on linear growth are inconsistent.

Who the Included Studies Covered

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were young children.

Data were analyzed in two ways i.e. weighted mean difference (effect size) and pooled mean difference for absolute increment in length in centimeters.

How the Review Was Done

A literature search was done on PubMed, Cochrane Library, IZiNCG database and WHO regional data bases using different terms for zinc and linear growth (height).

Data were abstracted in a standardized form.

Random effect models were used for these pooled estimates.

What Was Measured

The results of previous meta-analyses evaluating effect of zinc supplementation on linear growth are inconsistent.

The researchers have updated and evaluated the available evidence according to Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria and tried to explain the difference in results of the previous reviews.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Body Height, Developing Countries, Developmental Disabilities, Dietary Supplements, Software, Trace Elements and Zinc Compounds.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a meta-analysis of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Its findings take up roughly 7 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2011 (BMC public health), a journal based in England.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.