Role of Zinc in Improvement, Prevention, and Treatment of the Noncommunicable Oral Diseases: Review of Literature

Zinc, as the second most abundant trace element present in the living organisms after iron, plays a key role in the structural, catalytic, and signaling felds. Beyond the numerous systemic symptoms of zinc defciency, it may also contribute to different processes of oral diseases. The articles were collected from three search engines including PUBMED, GOOGLE SCHOLAR, and SCOPUS. The search keywords are as follows: Zinc, trace elements, zinc defciency, oral diseases, oral lesions, recurrent aphthous stomatitis, oral lichen planus, oral squamous cell carcinoma, burning mouth syndrome, xerostomia, neuropathy. Many diverse articles including original article, case report/case series, and review articles were collected. Several studies have investigated the role of zinc and its defciency in the development of various types of noncommunicable oral lesions including recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS), oral lichen planus (OLP), precancerous lesions of the oral cavity (leukoplakia and submucosal fbrosis), oral cancer, xerostomia and burning mouth syndrome, periodontal disease, and Caries. Therefore, the present research was conducted to review the previous studies performed in this feld. [GMJ.2021;10:e2071]