The effect of combined calcium and cholecalciferol supplementation on bone mineral density in elderly women with moderate chronic kidney disease.

What Was Tested

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

To examine the effect of combined calcium and vitamin D3 supplementation on bone mineral density (BMD) inpatients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 610 women were involved.

PubMed tags the participants as women only.

The researchers performed a post-hoc analysis of the DECALYOS II, a 2-year randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 610 women randomized to: calcium-vitamin D3 fixed combination, calcium plus vitamin D3 separate combination, or placebo.

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 women 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.

BMD of the distal radius was measured by single X-ray absorptiometry at baseline, 12 and 24 months.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Absorptiometry, Photon, Age Factors, Analysis of Variance, Biomarkers, Bone Density, Calcium and Chi-Square Distribution.

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 610 women.

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

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 (Clinical nephrology), a journal based in Germany.

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