Effect of micronutrient supplement on health and nutritional status of schoolchildren: bone health and body composition.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Calcium, Dietary in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The researchers investigated the effect of a micronutrient-enriched beverage on body composition, bone mineral content (BMC), bone area, and bone mineral density (BMD) at various sites in schoolchildren.

Increments of outcome variables were subjected to paired t test with appropriate corrections to assess the effect of the supplement on bone health.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as children and teenagers, both men and women.

A double-blind, placebo-controlled, matched-pair, cluster, randomization study was carried out in residential schoolchildren 6 to 16 y of age who lived near Hyderabad, India.

Children (n = 268) were selected randomly from two classes of each grade (1 to 9) and were provided a micronutrient-enriched beverage (n = 146) or a placebo drink (n = 122).

How the Study Was Run

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

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Calcium, Dietary group and the comparison group should start out alike.

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

Some participants received a placebo instead of Calcium, Dietary, giving a reference point.

Bone parameters such as BMC, BMD, and bone area at various sites and the entire body were measured with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry at the beginning and end of the study.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Absorptiometry, Photon, Body Composition, Bone Density, Bone and Bones, Calcium, Dietary, Cluster Analysis and Food, Fortified.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Calcium, Dietary.

Its findings take up roughly 5 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2006 (Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.)), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.