Recruitment and results of a pilot trial of vitamin D supplementation in the general population of Australia.

What Was Tested

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

Trials are needed to establish an appropriate evidence base.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 644 participants taking part.

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

A total of 644 participants were randomized, and 615 completed the study (two persons withdrew because of nonserious adverse events).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and pilot study.

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

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.

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

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Australia, Chronic Disease, Dietary Supplements, Neoplasms, Patient Selection, Pilot Projects and Population.

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 644 participants.

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

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2012 (The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism), a journal based in United States.

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