Randomized controlled trial of vitamin D supplementation in children with autism spectrum disorder.

What Was Tested

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

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of vitamin D supplementation on the core symptoms of autism in children.

Why It Was Studied

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a frequent developmental disorder characterized by pervasive deficits in social interaction, impairment in verbal and nonverbal communication, and stereotyped patterns of interests and activities.

It has been previously reported that there is vitamin D deficiency in autistic children; however, there is a lack of randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation in ASD children.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 109 children were involved.

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

This study is a double-blinded, randomized clinical trial (RCT) that was conducted on 109 children with ASD (85 boys and 24 girls; aged 3-10 years).

The autism severity and social maturity of the children were assessed by the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC), Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), and the Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC).

How the Study Was Run

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

The children were allocated by chance, so the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group and the comparison group should start out alike.

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

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

The serum levels of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol (25 (OH)D) were measured at the beginning and at the end of the study.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Autism Spectrum Disorder, Dietary Supplements and Vitamin D.

The authors tagged it with the keywords children and clinical trial.

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 109 children.

Results are reported in around 7 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2018 (Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines), a journal based in England.

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