Effects of alternative maternal micronutrient supplements on low birth weight in rural Nepal: double blind randomised community trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Zinc and Folic Acid in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To assess the impact on birth size and risk of low birth weight of alternative combinations of micronutrients given to pregnant women.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 4926 women taking part.

PubMed tags the participants as women only.

4926 pregnant women and 4130 live born infants.

How the Study Was Run

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

Because people in this Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Zinc study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Double blind cluster randomised controlled trial.

Rural community in south eastern Nepal.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Birth Weight, Dietary Supplements, Folic Acid, Infant, Low Birth Weight, Iron, Micronutrients and Nepal.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of Zinc and Folic Acid in 4926 women.

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

Its findings take up roughly 10 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2003 (BMJ (Clinical research ed.)), a journal based in England.

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