Vitamin D supplementation in bipolar depression: A double blind placebo controlled trial.

What Was Tested

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

Bipolar depression is difficult to treat.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

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

Some participants received a placebo instead of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, giving a reference point.

Change in Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), medication, and tolerance were assessed q2weeks.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Affect, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Cholecalciferol, Comorbidity, Dietary Supplements and Outcome Assessment, Health Care.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Depression and Vitamin.

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

The publication is from 2017 (Journal of psychiatric research), a journal based in England.

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