Impact of zinc deficiency on the recurrence in aphthous stomatitis: A prospective case-control study

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) is one of the frequent problems of the mouth that affects 10 to 20 percent of the population. Therefore, it is of interest to find out if the level of zinc in the blood is related to the recurrence of RAS and if taking zinc can reduce the recurrence and severity of RAS. We enrolled 30 RAS patients with minor recurrent aphthous stomatitis, and 30 healthy controls matched to the RAS patients by age and sex from the clinic over 12 months and RAS patients had significantly lower fasting serum zinc levels than the controls (76.4 ± 11.2 µg/dL vs. 87.3 ±8.9 µg/dL; p < 0.001). Zinc deficiency was seen in 56.7 percent of RAS patients with serum zinc levels less than 70 µg/dL compared with 16.7 percent of the controls (p < 0.001). Thus, low serum levels of zinc are significant predictors of recurrence of RAS and zinc can be used as an additional preventive measure against RAS.