Relative effectiveness of oral 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 and vitamin D3 in raising wintertime serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D in older adults.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

The researchers performed a randomized, controlled intervention study in apparently healthy, free-living adults to investigate whether the intake of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 is 5 times more potent in raising serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] during winter compared with an equivalent amount of vitamin D3.

Why It Was Studied

The relative potency of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 to vitamin D3 needs to be better defined so that food-composition tables can better reflect the true vitamin D nutritive value of certain foods.

Who Took Part

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

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind 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.

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.

Serum 25(OH)D was measured by using an enzyme-linked immunoassay, and serum albumin-corrected calcium (S-Ca) was assessed colorimetrically at the baseline, midpoint, and endpoint of the study.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Calcifediol, Calcium, Cholecalciferol, Diet, Dietary Supplements, Seasons and Sunlight.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2012 (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.