Influence of Vitamin D Supplementation on Growth, Body Composition, and Pubertal Development Among School-aged Children in an Area With a High Prevalence of Vitamin D Deficiency: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

What Was Tested

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

Phase 3 randomized clinical trials to investigate the influence of long-term vitamin D replacement on growth, body composition, and pubertal development of school-aged children with vitamin D deficiency are lacking.

Why It Was Studied

Vitamin D deficiency (defined as 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] <20 ng/mL) is prevalent among children living in temperate climates and has been reported to associate independently with stunting, obesity, and early activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 11,475 children were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as children, both men and women.

School-aged children (6 to 13 years at baseline) attending participating schools were included.

Of 11 475 children invited to participate in the study, 9814 underwent QFT testing, and 8851 with negative results were included in the study.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

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

Some children received a placebo instead of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, giving a reference point.

This secondary analysis of a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial was conducted from June 2016 to June 2019 at 18 grade schools in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

All but 1 participant in the placebo group completed follow-up and were included in the present analysis.

Data were analyzed from November 2021 to February 2022.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Prevalence, Vitamin D, Cholecalciferol, Vitamins, Vitamin D Deficiency, Dietary Supplements and Body Composition.

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 11,475 children.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Results are reported in around 5 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2023 (JAMA pediatrics), a journal based in United States.

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