The effect of vitamin D on renin-angiotensin system activation and blood pressure: a randomized control trial.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in the context of low blood pressure and orthostatic hypotension, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Disruption of vitamin D signaling in rodents causes activation of the rennin-angiotensin system (RAS) and development of hypertension.

The researchers performed the first randomized control trial to investigate the effects of vitamin D supplementation on the RAS in humans.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as 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.

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

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.

Kidney-specific RAS activity, measured using renal plasma flow response to captopril in high sodium balance, was assessed at baseline and 8 weeks, as was systemic RAS activity and 24-h ambulatory BP.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Antihypertensive Agents, Blood Pressure, Blood Pressure Determination, Captopril, Dietary Supplements, Ergocalciferols and Overweight.

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 people with low blood pressure and orthostatic hypotension.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2017 (Journal of hypertension), a journal based in Netherlands.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, Low blood pressure and orthostatic hypotension research.