SynthesisEuropean journal of nutrition2022
Effect of zinc supplementation on mortality in under 5-year children: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.
Synthesis in European journal of nutrition, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Role of Zinc Against Bacterial Infections in Neonates, Children, and Adults: A Scoping Review from the Available Evidence of Randomized Controlled Trials About Zinc Supplementation to New Research Opportunities.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Zinc Fortification and Supplementation to Reduce Diarrhea in Children: A Literature Review.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Effects of oral zinc supplementation in the prevention of community-acquired pneumonia in colombian children: an economic evaluation : Short running title: Cost-effectiveness analysis oral zinc supplementation.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Effect of probiotics plus zinc supplementation on clinical outcomes of infants and children with acute infectious diarrhea: a randomized controlled trial.Clinical and experimental pediatrics · 2024Article
- Mineral Supplements in Ageing.Sub-cellular biochemistry · 2024Review
- Zinc Prophylaxis to Reduce Mortality and Morbidity in Under-5 Children: Clinical and Global Health Points of View.Global pediatric health · 2023Article
- Assessment of zinc inadequacy among tribal adolescent population of central India - A cross-sectional study.The Indian journal of medical research · 2022Article
- Low-Molecular-Weight Synthetic Antioxidants: Classification, Pharmacological Profile, Effectiveness and Trends.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Ingestion, Immunity, and Infection: Nutrition and Viral Respiratory Tract Infections.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSeveral clinical trials evaluated the effect of zinc supplementation on mortality in children, but the results were inconsistent. We aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis on the impact of zinc supplementation on mortality in under 5-year children.
methodsA comprehensive search was conducted using the electronic (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science) databases, and Google Scholar, up to June 2020. Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) that reported the effect of zinc supplementation on death incidence in under 5-year children were included in the analysis. Screening was performed based on title/abstract and full-text. A random effects model was applied to calculate the summary relative risk (SRR). Risk of Bias 2.0 tool was used to rate the quality of trials. The body of evidence was assessed by the GRADE approach.
resultsCombining 30 RRs from 28 RCTs including 237,068 participants revealed that zinc supplementation has significantly reduced the risk of all-causes mortality by 16% in children (SRR: 0.84, 95% CI: 0.74, 0.96). A follow-up duration of less than 1 year after supplementation resulted in 54% reduced risk of mortality (0.46; 0.33, 0.63) with no heterogeneity between investigations. Subgroup analysis by zinc dosage showed that assigning ≥ 10 mg/d zinc to under five children and duration of less than 11 months of intervention decreased the risk of all-cause mortality by 44% (0.56; 0.42, 0.75) and 48% (0.52; 0.38, 0.72), respectively. In low birth weight (LBW) infants, zinc supplementation was reduced all-cause mortality by 52% (0.48; 0.23, 1.00). Zinc supplementation significantly reduced the risk of death from pneumonia (0.70: 0.64, 0.98) and infection (0.54; 0.39, 0.76), also changed the risk of mortality from diarrhea by 15% (0.85; 0.70, 1.03) and sepsis by 57% (0.43; 0.18, 1.02).
conclusionThis meta-analysis on RCTs revealed that zinc supplementation in under 5-year children has significantly reduced the risk of all-cause mortality. Notable decreases were found in trials with a dose of 10 mg/d or more zinc supplementation, a maximum of 11 months of supplementation, a follow-up less than one year and especially in LBW infants.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.