Exploring the synergistic effects of vitamin D and synbiotics on cytokines profile, and treatment response in breast cancer: a pilot randomized clinical trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in this randomized controlled trial publication.

This study was designed to investigate the effect of vitamin D and/or synbiotics on the response to treatment, cytokines profile and hormonal biomarkers in breast cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy.

Why It Was Studied

The study results found no clear link between the interventions and achieving pathological complete response (pCR), and a similar trend was observed in Ki-67 index examination.

Who Took Part

The study group was 76 patients.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, women only.

A total of 76 patients were recruited and completed the course of the intervention between 2019 and 2021 in Kerman, Iran. breast cancer patients were randomly enrolled in this study.

Patients divided into four groups to receive one of the following regimens: placebo, vitamin D, synbiotics and a combination of vitamin D and synbiotics. clinicopathologic parameters, inflammatory and anti-inflammatory biomarkers and hormonal levels were measured at the baseline and four months after intervention.

How the Study Was Run

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

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

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

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study would be practical.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Breast Neoplasms, Vitamin D, Synbiotics, Pilot Projects, Cytokines, Neoadjuvant Therapy and Iran.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Breast cancer, Clinical trial, Prebiotics and Probiotics.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and pilot study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 76 patients.

The publication is from 2024 (Scientific reports), a journal based in England.

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