Effect of vitamin D supplementation on depression in elderly patients: A randomized clinical trial.

What Was Tested

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

Treatment of depression in elderly population is a crucial issue.

The effect of vitamin D supplementation on treatment of depression in older adults was investigated in this clinical trial.

Who Took Part

The study group was 78 adults.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

It was an 8-week, randomized clinical trial of vitamin D supplementation and placebo in the treatment of depression in 3 psychiatric clinics.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized 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.

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

Main outcome measures comprised Geriatric Depression Scale-15 (GDS-15) questionnaire and 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 [25(OH)D3].

The analysis utilized Mann Whitney U test, Wilcoxon signed ranks test, chi-square and multiple regression analysis.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Depression, Dietary Supplements, Iran, Vitamin D and Vitamin D Deficiency.

Author keywords: Elderly.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 78 adults.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2019 (Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland)), a journal based in England.

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