Oral zinc supplements are ineffective for treating acute dehydrating diarrhoea in 5-12-year-olds.

What Was Tested

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

Many countries have guidelines recommending the use of oral zinc in acute dehydrating diarrhoea in children aged 2 months to 5 years of age, but no guidelines exist for older children.

Who Took Part

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

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

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

Some participants received a placebo instead of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, giving a reference point.

The primary outcome variable was the time taken for diarrhoea to stop.

Secondary outcome variables included time taken for rehydration, duration of hospitalisation and recurrence of diarrhoea in the next 3 months.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Acute Disease, Dehydration, Diarrhea, Dietary Supplements, Patient Admission, Treatment Failure and Zinc.

Author keywords: Child and Diarrhoea.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2015 (Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992)), a journal based in Norway.

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