Therapeutic effects of vitamin D as adjunctive therapy to fluoxetine in patients with major depressive disorder.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To compare the therapeutic effects of vitamin D3 plus fluoxetine and fluoxetine alone in patients with major depressive disorder.

Who Took Part

The study group was 42 patients.

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

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as 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.

As a double-blind Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group a baseline to be compared against.

Depression severity was assessed at 2-week intervals using the 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) as a primary outcome measure and the 21-item Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) as a secondary outcome measure.

Serum 25(OH) vitamin D was measured at baseline and after intervention.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Calcifediol, Cholecalciferol, Major Depressive Disorder, Fluoxetine and Psychiatric Status Rating Scales.

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 42 patients.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry), a journal based in England.

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