Effects of vitamin D supplementation on salivary immune responses during Marine Corps basic training.

What Was Tested

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

Saliva samples were collected pre-training, during (weeks 4 and 8), and post-training (week 12) in order to determine salivary SIgA and cathelicidin (indices of mucosal immunity) and α-amylase (indicator of stress).

Why It Was Studied

Males (n = 75) and females (n = 74) entering recruit basic training during the summer and winter volunteered to participate in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as teenagers and young adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as 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.

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

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

Initial (baseline) and post-training serum 25(OH)D levels were measured.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Antimicrobial Cationic Peptides, Calcium, Cholecalciferol, Dietary Supplements, Immunity, Mucosal, Immunoglobulin A and Military Personnel.

The authors tagged it with the keywords antimicrobial peptides, exercise, immunology and mucosal immunity.

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 (Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports), a journal based in Denmark.

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