Effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on relapses, disease progression, and measures of function in persons with multiple sclerosis: exploratory outcomes from a double-blind randomised controlled trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in the context of multiple sclerosis.

This 96-week randomised controlled trial was designed to assess the effect of vitamin D(3) supplementation on bone mineral density in persons with multiple sclerosis.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

Participants were age 21 to 50 years and fully ambulatory (median Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) 2.5).

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 participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc could be set against what happens without it.

The modified intention to treat analysis included 35 persons in the vitamin D(3) group and 33 in the placebo group.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Biomarkers, Bone Density, Chi-Square Distribution, Cholecalciferol, Dietary Supplements, Disability Evaluation and Disease Progression.

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 people with multiple sclerosis.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 3 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2012 (Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England)), a journal based in England.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, Multiple sclerosis research.