Vitamin D And Multiple Sclerosis

Vitamin D and Multiple Sclerosis
Here’s more good news about vitamin D: researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have found that the risk of MS is lowest among people whose vitamin D levels are high. While other research has suggested this link, the Harvard study is the first to indicate that increasing vitamin D levels could help prevent MS, a chronic degenerative neurological disease that affects some 350,000 people in the United States and two million worldwide. Working with researchers from the U.S. Army and Navy, the Harvard team analyzed stored serum samples from more than seven million individuals for levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. They found that the risk of MS among whites whose vitamin D levels were highest was 62 percent lower than among those whose levels were lowest. No significant associations were found among blacks and Hispanics, perhaps because there were fewer of their serum samples available or because these groups tend to have low vitamin D levels. More study is needed to establish whether increasing vitamin D levels with supplements will reduce the risk of MS. The study was published in the December 20, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association

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