A micronutrient-fortified young-child formula improves the iron and vitamin D status of healthy young European children: a randomized, double-blind controlled trial.

What Was Tested

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

The researchers aimed to investigate the effect of a micronutrient-fortified young-child formula (YCF) on the iron and vitamin D status of young European children.

Why It Was Studied

Iron deficiency (ID) and vitamin D deficiency (VDD) are common among young European children because of low dietary intakes and low compliance to vitamin D supplementation policies.

Milk is a common drink for young European children.

Who Took Part

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

Statistical adjustments were made in intention-to-treat analyses for sex, country, age, baseline micronutrient status, and micronutrient intake from food and supplements (and sun exposure in the case of vitamin D outcomes).

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and double-blind 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.

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.

Blood samples were taken before and after the intervention.

The primary and secondary outcomes were change from baseline in serum ferritin (SF) and 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], respectively.

What Was Measured

Studies evaluating the effect of milk fortification on iron and vitamin D status in these children are scarce.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Anemia, Iron-Deficiency, C-Reactive Protein, Europe, Ferritins, Food, Fortified, Hemoglobins and Infant Formula.

Author keywords: cow milk, iron deficiency, micronutrient fortification, vitamin D deficiency, vitamin D supplements and young children.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2017 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

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