The response of elderly veterans to daily vitamin D3 supplementation of 2,: a pilot efficacy study.

What Was Tested

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

Who Took Part

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

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants 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.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study would be practical.

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.

Geriatric clinic at the Bruce W.

Carter Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Miami, Florida.

Veterans aged 70 and older.

Serum calcium, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, parathyroid hormone, and 24-hour urinary calcium.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Calcium, Cholecalciferol, Dietary Supplements, Florida, Parathyroid Hormone, Pilot Projects 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.

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 2011 (Journal of the American Geriatrics Society), a journal based in United States.

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