Maternal vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy and lactation to promote infant growth in Dhaka, Bangladesh (MDIG trial): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Vitamin D regulates bone mineral metabolism and skeletal development.

Importantly, little is known about the effect of maternal vitamin D status on infant linear growth in communities in South Asia where stunting is highly prevalent and maternal-infant vitamin D status is commonly suboptimal.

Who Took Part

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

Anthropometric measurements, clinical information, and biological specimens collected at scheduled intervals will enable the assessment of a range of maternal, perinatal, and infant outcomes.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and parallel-group 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.

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

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc could be set against what happens without it.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

The primary trial outcome measure is length for age z-score at 1 year of age.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Age Factors, Bangladesh, Body Height, Child Development, Cholecalciferol, Clinical Protocols and Developing Countries.

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

The publication is from 2015 (Trials), a journal based in England.

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