Neither magnesium nor zinc has good evidence as a tinnitus treatment: the magnesium study was a small pilot with no placebo group, a Cochrane review found no evidence that zinc helps, and guidelines advise against supplementing for tinnitus.
Both are among the most commonly recommended tinnitus supplements, often sold together in "tinnitus support" formulas. Both have a plausible biological rationale, and both have much weaker clinical trial evidence than their popularity suggests. Correcting a real deficiency is a different matter, covered below.
Magnesium: a plausible mechanism, thin trial evidence
The rationale for magnesium comes largely from hearing research: studies in noise-induced and idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss have suggested that magnesium supplementation may lessen both hearing loss and tinnitus severity, which is the starting point the main tinnitus study gives for itself.
The clinical trial evidence, though, is thin. The most commonly cited study is a Phase 2 study at the Mayo Clinic: 26 people with moderate to very severe tinnitus took 532 mg of magnesium a day for three months, and 19 completed it. Among those with at least slight handicap, Tinnitus Handicap Inventory scores fell significantly. But it was a single-arm, open-label, before-and-after study — its authors say a placebo control was deliberately not used at this stage — and it was small enough that the results need confirmation in a properly controlled trial before they can be considered established. There is no Cochrane systematic review specifically covering magnesium for tinnitus, which is itself a signal of how limited the current evidence base is compared to better-studied treatments.
Zinc: tested against placebo, and no benefit found
Zinc has a role in how the cochlea works and in the synapses of the auditory system, which is why it was tried. The best summary of the trials is a 2016 Cochrane review: three randomised trials comparing zinc with placebo, 209 participants in total, at moderate to high risk of bias. The trials differed too much to pool, and none found a significant difference between zinc and placebo on tinnitus severity or loudness. The reviewers' conclusion is flat: no evidence that oral zinc supplementation improves symptoms in adults with tinnitus. None of the trials reported significant side effects.
A 2019 study from Taiwan gave zinc for two months to 20 people with tinnitus from noise-induced hearing loss. Their serum zinc rose and their Tinnitus Handicap Inventory scores fell from 38.3 to 30, but hearing, tinnitus pitch and loudness did not change, and there was no placebo group to set the fall against. It is the kind of result that looks encouraging on its own and says little beside the Cochrane review.
What remains open is whether zinc helps people who are deficient, which the placebo-controlled trials were not designed to answer.
What makes sense here
The most defensible approach isn't "take magnesium and zinc because you have tinnitus" — it's checking whether you're actually low in either first. A basic blood panel (often covered by insurance with a physician's order) can confirm or rule out deficiency in either mineral. If you're deficient, correcting that deficiency is reasonable medical care regardless of tinnitus, and any tinnitus improvement would be a plausible bonus. If your levels are normal, the evidence doesn't support supplementing specifically for tinnitus relief. Both minerals are generally safe at reasonable doses, but check with a doctor or pharmacist before starting, especially alongside other medications — magnesium in particular can interact with certain antibiotics and blood pressure medications.
Combination supplements
Many commercial "tinnitus formulas" combine magnesium, zinc, ginkgo biloba, B vitamins, and melatonin into a single product; branded formulas such as Lipo-Flavonoid and Arches have their own article. A few small trials of these multi-ingredient combinations have reported positive results on tinnitus handicap scores — but combination-product trials make it inherently difficult to know which ingredient, if any, is doing the work, and results from a manufacturer-funded trial of a specific proprietary blend don't necessarily generalize to a different combination product with similar-sounding ingredients.
Where the professional guideline lands
Zinc is named directly. The American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery's clinical practice guideline on tinnitus issues a recommendation against ginkgo biloba, melatonin, zinc and other dietary supplements for persistent, bothersome tinnitus.
The 2024 VA/DoD guideline reaches the same place for the whole category: it suggests against ginkgo biloba, dietary or herbal supplements, and nutraceuticals for tinnitus management (weak against). Magnesium falls under that.
A 2026 Korean national clinical practice guideline reaches the same conclusion independently and states it more forcefully: routine zinc and vitamin supplementation is strongly recommended against for improving tinnitus symptoms. Notably, the same guideline is permissive about ginkgo, saying it may be considered — so this is not a panel that rejects supplements as a category. On zinc specifically, two guidelines a decade apart and on different continents agree.
Worth being precise about what that does and does not say. It is a recommendation against supplementing for tinnitus — it is not a statement about correcting a documented deficiency, which remains ordinary medical care for its own reasons. That distinction is the whole of the practical advice above. The same distinction governs vitamin D: correcting a measured deficiency and taking a supplement speculatively are different acts with different justifications, however similar the bottle looks.