Effects of vitamin D supplementation on depressive symptoms in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients: Randomized placebo-controlled double-blind clinical trial.

What Was Tested

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

Therefore, the researchers examined effects of vitamin D monotherapy (without antidepressant drugs) on depressive symptoms in Type 2 diabetic patients with mild to moderate depressive symptoms.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 2 patients taking part.

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

The researchers conducted 12 weeks, placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized trial on 68 subjects with T2DM and mild to moderate depressive symptoms.

Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II-PERSIAN) was applied for assessment of the severity of depression.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Neither the patients nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

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

Depression scores and metabolic profiles were measured at the beginning and end of trail.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Biomarkers, Blood Glucose, Major Depressive Disorder, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Dietary Supplements, Prognosis and Vitamin D.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Depression and Randomized controlled trial.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 2 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

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 (Diabetes & metabolic syndrome), a journal based in Netherlands.

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