Vitamin D, calcium supplementation, and colorectal adenomas: results of a randomized trial.

What Was Tested

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

Calcium and vitamin D both appear to have antineoplastic effects in the large bowel.

Although these nutrients are inter-related metabolically in bone and in the normal intestine, their potential interactions in large-bowel carcinogenesis are not well understood.

Who Took Part

The study group was 803 subjects.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

Risk ratios (RRs) for any adenoma recurrence were computed for calcium supplementation within groups defined by serum vitamin D levels and for serum vitamin D levels within treatment groups.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group a baseline to be compared against.

Serum levels of 25-hydroxy [25-(OH)] vitamin D and 1,25-dihydroxy [1,25-(OH)2] vitamin D levels were determined, and the Taq I and Fok I polymorphisms in the vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction.

Associations of VDR polymorphisms with recurrence risk were also evaluated.

All statistical tests were two-sided.

What Was Measured

Although these nutrients are inter-related metabolically in bone and in the normal intestine, their potential interactions in large-bowel carcinogenesis are not well understood.

The subject headings attached to it are Adenoma, Anticarcinogenic Agents, Calcium Compounds, Colonoscopy, Colorectal Neoplasms, Dietary Supplements and Genotype.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 803 subjects.

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 2003 (Journal of the National Cancer Institute), a journal based in United States.

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