Possible relationship between poor skin disorders prognosis and serum zinc level: A narrative review

Abstract

Zinc is a trace nutrient essential for the normal growth and development of human body. The main aim was to evaluate the significant association between measured zinc status in relation to different skin disorders and their severity. PubMed®, Google® Scholar™ and Cochrane© Reviews databases were searched for studies from January 2017 to June 2021, using the terms; zinc serum levels, zinc plasma levels and different dermatosis in the review, only human studies in English language were reviewed and the studies designs were controlled, cross sectional, observational and analytic types. A total of forty-eight research studies were included in this review. All studies have evaluated serum zinc in skin diseases including psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, pityriasis alba, androgenetic alopecia areata, telogen effluvium, vitiligo, melasma, acne, seborrheic dermatitis and hidradenitis suppuritiva. It was found that 33 studies had validated statistically significant differences in serum zinc levels between patients and controls. There is a predominance of low serum zinc levels in all the dermatoses reviewed. The clinical significance of this finding highlights the possible value, and need to investigate, the use of Zinc supplementation as an adjuvant therapy in the management of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune skin diseases proven to manifest altered zinc levels.