A double-blind, randomized, clinical trial of the effect of vitamin A and zinc supplementation on diarrheal disease and respiratory tract infections in children in Mexico City, Mexico.

What Was Tested

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

The researchers evaluated the effect of vitamin A and zinc supplementation on overall rates of childhood diarrheal disease and respiratory tract infections and rates stratified by household and personal characteristics.

Children were followed for 12 mo to determine overall counts of diarrheal episodes and respiratory tract infections.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 736 children were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are infants, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind 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.

Neither the children nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

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

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Confidence Intervals, Diarrhea, Dietary Supplements, Family Characteristics, Hygiene, Mexico and Prevalence.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 736 children.

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

Its findings take up roughly 6 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 (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.