Zinc supplementation as an adjunct to antibiotics in the treatment of pneumonia in children 2 to 59 months of age.

What It Covers

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in this meta-analysis publication.

To evaluate zinc supplementation, as an adjunct to antibiotics, in the treatment (clinical recovery) of pneumonia in children aged two to 59 months.

Why It Was Studied

The researchers searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library 2011, Issue 1), which contains the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) Group's and the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group's Specialised Registers, MEDLINE (1950 to March week 2, 2011), EMBASE (1974 to March 2011), CINAHL (1981 to March 2011), LILACS (1985 to March 2011), AMED (1985 to March 2011), CAB Abstracts (1910 to March 2011) and Web of Science (2000 to March 2011).

Randomised control trials (RCTs) evaluating supplementation of zinc as an adjunct to antibiotics for pneumonia in children aged two to 59 months.

Who the Included Studies Covered

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

What Was Measured

Randomised control trials (RCTs) evaluating supplementation of zinc as an adjunct to antibiotics for pneumonia in children aged two to 59 months.

Two review authors independently assessed trial eligibility and screened all available titles and abstracts for inclusion.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Anti-Bacterial Agents, Dietary Supplements, Length of Stay, Pneumonia, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Recovery of Function and Respiratory Rate.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2011 (The Cochrane database of systematic reviews), a journal based in England.

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