Relation Between Zinc and Thyroid Hormones in Humans: a Systematic Review

The aim of this study was to systematically evaluate the relation between zinc and the thyroid hormones in humans. The search for articles was conducted using the Pubmed, Scopus, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and ScienceDirect databases on October 21 and 22, 2019, by two authors independently. The recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) were followed in the conduct of this review. The Cochrane Collaboration tool was used to assess the risk of bias of the trials included in this review. After the screening of the articles, eight studies that assessed the effects of zinc supplementation on thyroid hormone concentrations and ten studies that assessed the relationship between blood zinc concentrations and thyroid hormones were included in this systematic review. Although cross-sectional and case-control studies have shown a relationship between zinc deficiency and thyroid, the data from this systematic review provides inconclusive evidence with respect to the effects of zinc supplementation on thyroid hormone concentrations due to the divergence of the research found by the authors that only reports findings in patients suffering from some kind of disease, which cannot be generalized to the average human population.