Changes in iron status during pregnancy in peruvian women receiving prenatal iron and folic acid supplements with or without zinc.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Their objective was to describe the effect of iron supplementation on hematologic changes during pregnancy, and the effect on those changes of adding zinc to the supplements.

Why It Was Studied

Iron deficiency anemia is the most prevalent nutrient deficiency during pregnancy, yet there are few data on the effect of prenatal iron supplementation in women in developing countries.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 645 women were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers and adults, women only.

Pregnant women were enrolled in a randomized, double-masked study conducted at a hospital in a shantytown in Lima, Peru.

Hemoglobin and ferritin concentrations were measured in 645 and 613 women, respectively, at enrollment, at 28-30 and 37-38 wk gestation, and in the cord blood of 545 neonates.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and double-blind study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Blinding on both sides kept the women and researchers unaware of who received Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Anemia, Iron-Deficiency, Dietary Supplements, Ferritins, Folic Acid, Gestational Age, Hemoglobins and Iron, Dietary.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 645 women.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2000 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.