Weekly Vitamin D Supplementation to Prevent Acute Respiratory Infections in Young Children at Different Latitudes: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

What Was Tested

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

Who Took Part

The study group was 303 children.

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

Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 303 children aged 1.5-3.5 years from 2014 to 2105 in 3 Chilean cities at different latitudes: Santiago (33°S, n = 101), Talcahuano (37°S, n = 103), and Punta Arenas (53°S, n = 99).

How the Study Was Run

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

Because people in this Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

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

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

Primary outcome was parent-reported number of ARI; secondary outcomes included number of ARI hospitalizations, change of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and LL-37/cathelicidin levels, and adverse events.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Respiratory Tract Infections, Dietary Supplements, Vitamin D, Cholecalciferol, Acute Disease, Vitamins and Chile.

The authors tagged it with the keywords acute respiratory infection, cathelicidin, children and vitamin D deficiency.

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 303 children.

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

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 2024 (The Journal of pediatrics), a journal based in United States.

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