Muscle Cramps Do Not Improve With Correction of Vitamin D Insufficiency.

What Was Tested

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

The researchers evaluated whether correction of vitamin D insufficiency relieved muscle cramps in postmenopausal women.

Why It Was Studied

Minimal treatment options exist for idiopathic muscle cramps.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, women only.

Two hundred thirty postmenopausal women participated.

Eligible women were ≤75 years old, 5 years past menopause or oophorectomy, or ≥60 years if they had previously undergone hysterectomy without oophorectomy.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was 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.

As a double-blind Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

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

Women had vitamin D insufficiency at baseline (25-hydroxyvitamin D 14-27 ng/mL).

Participants completed food diaries, laboratory studies, and functional tests including the Timed Up and Go test, Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly, Health Assessment Questionnaire (a measure of disability), and pain scores.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Muscle Cramp, Pain Measurement, Postmenopause, Treatment Failure and Vitamin D Deficiency.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled 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 (WMJ : official publication of the State Medical Society of Wisconsin), a journal based in United States.

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