| Abstract: | BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The differences of dietary iron and zinc intakes between patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and controls remain controversial. The meta-analysis aimed to explore the differences of dietary iron and zinc intakes between NAFLD patients and healthy subjects. METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN: A systematic literature search was performed up to July 2021 in databases of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang. Using a randomeffects model, the differences of dietary iron and zinc intakes between cases and controls were calculated as standardized mean differences (SMDs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). A total of 21 studies from 19 articles with 6639 cases were included. RESULTS: The pooled estimate showed no difference in dietary iron consumption in the NAFLD groups compared with control groups. The difference became significant in Asia (SMD=0.16; 95% CI: 0.04, 0.28; I2=89.1%; pheterogeneity<0.001) as well as in cross-sectional studies (SMD=0.12; 95% CI: 0.07, 0.17; I2=4.7%; pheterogeneity=0.350). The difference in dietary zinc intake between cases and controls was not significant. We noticed a statistically significant increase of dietary zinc intake in NAFLD compared to controls in studies using food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to evaluate dietary intake (SMD=0.15; 95% CI: 0.10, 0.20; I2=12.2%; pheterogeneity=0.332). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicated that dietary iron intake in patients with NAFLD was higher than healthy subjects in Asia. |
