Effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on iron status: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial among ethnic minorities living in Norway.

What Was Tested

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

However, there is a paucity of randomised controlled trials assessing the effect of vitamin D supplementation on iron status.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 251 participants taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as teenagers, young adults, adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

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

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

However, there is a paucity of randomised controlled trials assessing the effect of vitamin D supplementation on iron status.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Anemia, Iron-Deficiency, Asia, C-Reactive Protein, Cholecalciferol, Dietary Supplements, Ethnicity and Ferritins.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Immigrants, Iron status, Randomised controlled trials and Vitamin D.

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 251 participants.

Its findings take up roughly 3 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2016 (Nutrition journal), a journal based in England.

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