The efficacy of a compounded micronutrient supplement on the incidence, duration, and severity of the common cold: A pilot randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Copper (Supplement).

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 259 participants taking part.

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

This pilot study was a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial of N = 259 with asymptomatic participants aged 18 to 65 in two cold seasons of 2016 and 2017.

The treatment group received an immune system targeted micronutrient caplet, while the placebo group received a micronized cellulose caplet externally identical to the treatment caplet.

How the Study Was Run

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

Because people in this Copper (Supplement) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the participants and researchers unaware of who received Copper (Supplement).

Some participants received a placebo instead of Copper (Supplement), giving a reference point.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Copper (Supplement) study would be practical.

Primary statistical results were obtained using mixed-effects logistic regressions to account for longitudinal measurements for participants.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Common Cold, Cough, Dietary Supplements, Incidence, Micronutrients, Odds Ratio and Pharyngitis.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Copper (Supplement) in 259 participants.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2020 (PloS one), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Copper (Supplement) compound page, all human trials.