Effects of Maternal Vitamin D Supplementation on the Maternal and Infant Epigenome.

What Was Tested

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

This study quantified the effects of vitamin D3 supplementation on DNA methylation in pregnant and lactating women and their breastfed infants.

Why It Was Studied

Mothers and infants are at high risk for inadequate vitamin D status.

Mechanisms by which vitamin D may affect maternal and infant DNA methylation are poorly understood.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as infants and adults, women only.

How the Study Was Run

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

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

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

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study would be practical.

Epigenome-wide DNA methylation was quantified in leukocytes collected from mothers at birth and mother-infant dyads at 4-6 weeks postpartum.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Breast Feeding, Cholecalciferol, CpG Islands, DNA Methylation, Dietary Supplements, Epigenomics and Genome-Wide Association Study.

Author keywords: breastfeeding, infant, lactation and pregnancy.

What This Means in Plain Language

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

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 (Breastfeeding medicine : the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine), a journal based in United States.

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