Daily Nutritional Supplementation with Vitamin D₃ and Phenylbutyrate to Treatment-Naïve HIV Patients Tested in a Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Poor nutritional status is common among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients including vitamin D (vitD₃) deficiency.

Primary endpoint: the change in plasma HIV-1 comparing week 0 to 16 using modified intention-to-treat (mITT, n = 197) and per-protocol (n = 173) analyses.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

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

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

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

What Was Measured

Primary endpoint: the change in plasma HIV-1 comparing week 0 to 16 using modified intention-to-treat (mITT, n = 197) and per-protocol (n = 173) analyses.

Secondary endpoints: longitudinal HIV viral load, T cell counts, body mass index (BMI), middle-upper-arm circumference (MUAC), and 25(OH)D₃ levels in plasma.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Body Mass Index, Butyrates, CD4 Lymphocyte Count, Cholecalciferol, Dietary Supplements, Ethiopia and HIV Infections.

The authors tagged it with the keywords clinical trial, immunity, nutrition, supplementation and vitamin D.

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 publication is from 2019 (Nutrients), a journal based in Switzerland.

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