Zinc supplementation for the promotion of growth and prevention of infections in infants less than six months of age.

What It Covers

This meta-analysis looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

The researchers used the GRADE approach to assess the quality of evidence as indicated by certainty in effect estimates.

Why It Was Studied

Zinc is a vital micronutrient for humans and is essential for protein synthesis, cell growth, and differentiation.

Not only does zinc deficiency affect lives, it adds to the considerable financial burden on depleted resources in countries that are most affected.

Who the Included Studies Covered

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

Studies fulfilling prespecified inclusion criteria were included with any disagreements resolved by consensus.

How the Review Was Done

The researchers used the standard search strategy of the Cochrane Neonatal Group to search the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL 2018, Issue 4), MEDLINE via PubMed (1966 to 18 May 2018), Embase (1980 to 18 May 2018), and CINAHL (1982 to 18 May 2018).

The researchers also searched clinical trials databases, conference proceedings, and the reference lists of retrieved articles for randomised controlled trials and quasi-randomised trials.

An updated search from 1 January 2018 to 29 January 2020 was run in the following databases: CENTRAL via CRS Web, MEDLINE via Ovid, and CINAHL via EBSCOhost.

What Was Measured

All randomised controlled (individual and cluster randomised) and quasi-randomised trials of zinc supplementation in healthy, term infants, less than six months of age comparing infant mortality, incidence of diarrhoea or respiratory illnesses, growth and/or serum zinc levels were eligible.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Growth, Infant Mortality, Infection Control, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Riboflavin, Trace Elements and Vitamin B Complex.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Its findings take up roughly 9 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2020 (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.