The effect of alpha-lipoic acid on inflammatory mediators: a systematic review and meta-analysis on randomized clinical trials.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA) is a natural antioxidant compound which is naturally found in plant sources. New evidence revealed that ALA can reduce inflammation. Our objective in this meta-analysis was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis on randomized controlled trials to indicate ALA effects on serum inflammatory mediators concentration such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), c-reactive protein (CRP), and interleukin-6 (IL-6). In order to find relevant articles we performed a systematic research up to June 2018 using EMBASE, ISI web of science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google scholar. The overall treatment effect for each inflammatory marker was calculated as weighted mean differences (WMD) and corresponding 95% of confidence interval (CI) between changes in intervention and control groups. Changes for each parameter were calculated by subtracting baseline values from the final mean values. The I