Vitamin D Protects Against Multiple Sclerosis

Our old friend Vitamin D is proving valuable again in a new research study!

Vitamin D May Protect Against MS

“There is new evidence supporting the idea that vitamin D helps prevent multiple sclerosis, but it is too soon to recommend taking the vitamin to lower your risk, researchers say. In the first large-scale study to examine the issue, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health reported a strong association between vitamin D levels within the body and MS risk among whites, but not among blacks and Hispanics. The study is published in the Dec. 20 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Senior researcher Alberto Ascherio, MD, DrPH, tells WebMD that roughly half of white Americans and two-thirds of black Americans could be considered to have insufficient levels of vitamin D. Because exposure to sunlight is a major source of the vitamin for most people, vitamin D levels are usually lowest in the wintertime. ‘Our findings suggest that vitamin D may have a direct impact on multiple sclerosis risk,’ Ascherio says. ‘If we confirm that the vitamin is protective, we could potentially prevent thousands of cases of MS a year in the United States alone.'”