The effect of vitamin D on nonspecific low back pain.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Nonspecific low back pain is known as one of the most common reasons for chronic low back pain (CLBP) that burdens healthcare systems with high costs.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 53 patients taking part.

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

This double blind randomized clinical trial included 53 patients aged between 18-40 years with nonspecific CLBP.

The patients were randomly divided into two groups based on sex and weight.

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.

Pain was measured using the pain visual analogue scale score (VAS), and serum 25-OH-vitamin D level was measured using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit.

Data were analyzed via SPSS 17th edition software using two-tailed paired t-test and chi-square test.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Biomarkers, Chi-Square Distribution, Cholecalciferol, Dietary Supplements, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Iran and Low Back Pain.

The authors tagged it with the keywords vitamin D3.

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 53 patients.

Results are reported in around 9 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2015 (International journal of rheumatic diseases), a journal based in England.

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