Associations between vitamin D, disease activity, and clinical response to therapy in rheumatoid arthritis.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in the context of rheumatoid arthritis, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Vitamin D deficiency is a potential risk factor for autoimmunity.

Prior studies of the association between vitamin D levels and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) disease activity have yielded conflicting results.

Multivariable linear regression was used to assess associations between vitamin D levels and disease activity scores (DAS28), van der Heijde-Sharp (vdHS) erosion scores, and serum inflammatory markers.

Who Took Part

The study group was 499 participants.

PubMed indexes the participants as teenagers, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

Serum 25(OH)vitamin D levels were measured at baseline in 499 participants with active RA, ages 18-85 years, enrolled in a randomised clinical trial of golimumab (Go-Before Trial).

Subjects were methotrexate and biologic therapy naïve.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized study.

The participants were allocated by chance, so the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group and the comparison group should start out alike.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Antibodies, Monoclonal, Antirheumatic Agents, Arthritis, Rheumatoid, Biomarkers, Disability Evaluation, Inflammation Mediators and Linear Models.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 499 participants in people with rheumatoid arthritis.

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

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 2013 (Clinical and experimental rheumatology), a journal based in Italy.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, Rheumatoid arthritis research.