Effect of 5 y of calcium plus vitamin D supplementation on change in circulating lipids: results from the Women's Health Initiative.

What Was Tested

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

The objective was to evaluate the effect of a longer-term effect (over 5 y) of calcium and vitamin D (CaD) supplementation on changes in the concentrations of several lipids: LDL, HDL, non-HDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)].

Why It Was Studied

Clinical trials that have evaluated the effect of calcium supplementation on lipids are limited by a short follow-up, and data on vitamin D are scarce.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 1259 women were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults and older adults, women only.

Repeated measurements on lipids during follow-up were analyzed by linear mixed-effects models.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and placebo-controlled.

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.

Some women received a placebo instead of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, giving a reference point.

Analyses were conducted by intention-to-treat.

What Was Measured

Clinical trials that have evaluated the effect of calcium supplementation on lipids are limited by a short follow-up, and data on vitamin D are scarce.

The subject headings attached to it are Calcium, Cardiovascular Diseases, Dietary Supplements, Lipids, Lipoprotein(a), Micronutrients and Postmenopause.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 1259 women.

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

Results are reported in around 4 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2010 (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.