The impact of prenatal vitamin A and zinc supplementation on birth size and neonatal survival - a double-blind, randomized controlled trial in a rural area of Indonesia.

What Was Tested

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

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as both men and women.

A double-blind, randomized controlled trial supplementing women (n = 2173) in Central Java, Indonesia throughout pregnancy with vitamin A, zinc, combined vitamin A+zinc, or placebo.

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.

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.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Birth Weight, Body Height, Dietary Supplements, Infant Mortality, Morbidity, Vitamin A and Zinc.

The authors tagged it with the keywords birth size, infant death, neonatal morbidity and pregnancy.

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 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2013 (International journal for vitamin and nutrition research. Internationale Zeitschrift fur Vitamin- und Ernahrungsforschung. Journal international de vitaminologie et de nutrition), a journal based in Singapore.

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