Clinical efficacy of a dentifrice and oral rinse containing sanguinaria extract and zinc chloride during 6 months of use.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Zinc.

Sixty subjects with moderate levels of plaque and gingivitis were randomly assigned to active and placebo groups.

Who Took Part

The study group was 30 subjects.

PubMed indexes the participants as adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the subjects nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Zinc, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Zinc group a baseline to be compared against.

Noninvasive measures of plaque and gingivitis were assessed at baseline and at 2, 6, 8, 14, 20, and 28 weeks.

Bleeding on probing was measured at baseline and 6, 14, and 28 weeks.

What Was Measured

Sixty subjects with moderate levels of plaque and gingivitis were randomly assigned to active and placebo groups.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Alkaloids, Analysis of Variance, Anti-Infective Agents, Benzophenanthridines, Chlorides, Clinical Trials as Topic and Dental Plaque.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Zinc in 30 subjects.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

The publication is from 1990 (Journal of periodontology), a journal based in United States.

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