Effect of daily and weekly micronutrient supplementation on micronutrient deficiencies and growth in young Vietnamese children.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Zinc and Iron in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Micronutrient deficiencies remain common in preschool children in developing countries.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were infants and young children, both men and women.

Venous blood samples were collected at the start and end of the supplementation period and anthropometric measurements were taken at the start and 3 mo after the end of supplementation.

How the Study Was Run

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

Because people in this 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 Zinc study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Zinc group a baseline to be compared against.

A third group (n = 54) received a placebo only.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Ascorbic Acid Deficiency, Dietary Supplements, Growth, Hemoglobins, Iron, Iron Deficiencies and Micronutrients.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Zinc and Iron.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 1999 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

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