Calcium and vitamin D supplementation and cognitive impairment in the women's health initiative.

What Was Tested

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

To examine the effects of vitamin D and calcium on cognitive outcomes in elderly women.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were older adults and people over 80, women only.

Forty Women's Health Initiative (WHI) clinical centers across the United States.

Four thousand one hundred forty-three women aged 65 and older without probable dementia at baseline who participated in the WHI Calcium and Vitamin D Trial and the WHI Memory Study.

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.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

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

Post hoc analysis of a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.

Primary: classifications of probable dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) based on a four-phase protocol that included central adjudication.

Secondary: global cognitive function and individual cognitive subtests.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Calcium Carbonate, Cholecalciferol, Cognition, Cognition Disorders and Dietary Supplements.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2012 (Journal of the American Geriatrics Society), a journal based in United States.

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