North Central Cancer Treatment Group N10C2 (Alliance): a double-blind placebo-controlled study of magnesium supplements to reduce menopausal hot flashes.

What Was Tested

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

Hot flashes are a common symptom in breast cancer survivors that can negatively impact quality of life.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, women only.

The primary endpoint was intrapatient difference in mean hot flash score between baseline and treatment periods, comparing each magnesium group with the combined placebo groups using a gatekeeping procedure.

How the Study Was Run

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

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.

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

A four-arm, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized trial was conducted.

Hot flash frequency and hot flash score (number × mean severity) were measured using a validated hot flash diary.

A 1-week baseline period preceded initiation of study medication.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Breast Neoplasms, Dietary Supplements, Hot Flashes, Magnesium Oxide, Menopause and Quality of Life.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2015 (Menopause (New York, N.Y.)), a journal based in United States.

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