Effects of a multivitamin/multimineral supplement on young males with physical overtraining: a placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blinded cross-over trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Minerals in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To investigate the effects of vitamin-mineral supplement on young males with physical overtraining.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults and adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Minerals and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Minerals, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Minerals, giving a reference point.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Minerals and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

Blood and urine samples were analyzed for adrenal, gonadal and thyroid hormones.

In addition, cellular immune parameters (CD3+, CD3+CD4+, CD3+CD8+, CD4/CD8, CD3-CD56+, CD3-CD19+) were examined and psychological tests were performed before and after the training program and nutrition intervention.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Affect, CD4-CD8 Ratio, Dietary Supplements, Emotions, Exercise, Hormones and Killer Cells, Natural.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Diet supplement, Intervention, Overtraining, Randomized and Vitamins.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Minerals.

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 (Biomedical and environmental sciences : BES), a journal based in China.

More context: all human trials.