Efficacy, safety, and acceptability of polyethylene glycol 3350 without electrolytes vs magnesium hydroxide in functional constipation in children from six months to eighteen years of age: A controlled clinical trial.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as a randomized controlled trial.

There are few studies that compare polyethylene glycol (PEG) 3350 and magnesium hydroxide (MH), as long-term treatment of functional constipation (FC) in children, and they do not include infants as young as 6 months of age.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are young children and children.

Success was defined as: ≥ 3 bowel movements/week, with no fecal incontinence, fecal impaction, abdominal pain, or the need for another laxative.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, open-label and parallel-group 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.

Being open-label, the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study did not mask who received what.

The Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group and the comparison group ran side by side rather than switching.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Laxatives, Magnesium Hydroxide, Polyethylene Glycols, Constipation and Electrolytes.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Children, Estreñimiento funcional, Functional constipation, Hidróxido de magnesio, Leche de magnesia and Milk of magnesia.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, open-label and parallel-group study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

Its findings take up roughly 7 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2023 (Revista de gastroenterologia de Mexico (English)), a journal based in Mexico.

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