Sex-specific responses to zinc supplementation in Nouna, Burkina Faso.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To study the different responses by sex to zinc supplementation among young children.

STUDY CHILDREN AND METHODS: Double-blind randomized controlled trial of zinc supplementation in 686 children aged 6-30 months, conducted in Nouna, a rural area of Burkina Faso.

Outcomes were morbidity, nutritional status, and mortality.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 686 children taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were infants and young children, 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 Burkina Faso, Dietary Supplements, Infections, Nutritional Status, Rural Population, Sex Factors and Zinc Sulfate.

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 686 children.

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

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2007 (Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition), a journal based in United States.

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