Zinc supplementation, mental development and behaviour in low birth weight term infants in northeast Brazil.

What Was Tested

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

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were infants.

Field workers visited each infant at home to administer the supplement.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

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.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc could be set against what happens without it.

At 6 and 12-months, the numbers tested were 163 and 138 respectively.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Behavior, Brazil, Child Development, Infant, Low Birth Weight, Mental Processes, Poverty and Psychomotor Performance.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Age Factors, Americas, Biology, Body Weight, Delivery Of Health Care and Demographic Factors.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

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 1998 (European journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in England.

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