Vitamin D3 and marine ω-3 fatty acids supplementation and leukocyte telomere length: 4-year findings from the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL) 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

According to the abstract, 1054 participants were involved.

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

The VITAL Telomere study (NCT04386577) included 1054 participants who were evaluated in person at the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center.

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.

LTL was determined by the Absolute Human Telomere Length Quantification quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method at baseline, Year 2, and Year 4.

The pre-specified primary outcome measures were changes in LTL between baseline, Year 2 and Year 4.

Analyses of intervention effect used mixed-effects linear regression models.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Dietary Supplements, Cholecalciferol, Leukocytes, Fatty Acids, Omega-3, Telomere, Telomere Homeostasis and Telomere Shortening.

Author keywords: aging, marine n–3 fatty acids, telomere length and vitamin D.

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 1054 participants.

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2025 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

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