Effect of Zinc Supplementation vs Placebo on Mortality Risk and HIV Disease Progression Among HIV-Positive Adults With Heavy Alcohol Use: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

What Was Tested

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

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 15 men taking part.

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

This study is a double-blinded placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial of zinc supplementation among participants recruited from 2013 to 2015.

Participants were recruited from HIV and addiction clinical and nonclinical care sites in St Petersburg, Russia.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

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

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc could be set against what happens without it.

Participants were adults (aged 18-70 years) with documented HIV infection who were antiretroviral therapy-naive at baseline and had past 30-day heavy alcohol consumption.

Data analysis was performed from February 2017 to February 2020.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Alcohol-Related Disorders, Dietary Supplements, Disease Progression, HIV Infections, Russia, Veterans and Zinc.

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 15 men.

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.

Results are reported in around 10 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2020 (JAMA network open), a journal based in United States.

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