Information about vitamin d and ms
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Email Vitamin D could ease symptoms for MS sufferers ==============================================
Posted November 17, 2009 16:01:00 Updated November 17, 2009 16:27:00 Researchers are advising people with MS to take safe levels of vitamin D supplements.
Researchers are advising people with MS to take safe levels of vitamin D supplements. (ABC News: Giulio Saggin, file photo) Australian scientists have found that Vitamin D may slow the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Figures showing that people living in Tasmania are seven times more likely to develop MS than Queenslanders had suggested a link between sunlight exposure and the disease. Researchers at the Menzies Institute have now found that taking more vitamin D may also reduce the symptoms of the disease.
They presented their paper at a national scientific conference for medical research in Hobart. Sydney-born soprano Toni Powell was singing with Opera Australia when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in her late 20s.
"I was at rehearsals and in performances and the tingles were coming up and down my arms and legs and my balance was getting worse," she said. "During one performance of a very energetic dance show, I just went flat over and my partner just picked me up so I didn't disturb the line. When you can't stand up and when you can't walk elegantly out onto an operatic stage or judge all the obstacles, it becomes very difficult to keep working in that field."
Now Ms Powell is 44, teaches singing and uses a walking stick. She says the symptoms of the disease come in waves or attacks where she can lose the entire feeling in her hands or legs.
"The majority of my lesions - which is where there have been attacks on my central nervous system - are actually in my spine so my biggest problem is with walking and my balance. So I find myself falling over a little more than I would like to," she said. The autoimmune disease affects the central nervous system and occurs more often in regions furthest from the equator.
Tasmania has the highest rate of MS in the country. The link between vitamin D, which the body produces when exposed to sunlight, and the risk of developing the disease has been well established.
But until now there's been little research on whether vitamin D can ease the symptoms. Professor Bruce Taylor is a principle research fellow at the Menzies Institute in Hobart.
Professor Taylor says that symptoms vary depending on the time of year. "Multiple sclerosis attacks happen seasonally. They are more common in spring than they are in autumn and spring is when you have your lowest vitamin D levels," he said.
Professor Taylor studied 145 patients in southern Tasmania and tracked their seasonal susceptibility to the disease. "In the study we did in Tasmania, we looked at people who had MS and we looked at how their own vitamin D levels influenced their risk of having an attack of MS, which is referred to as a relapse," he said.
"What we found was that the higher your vitamin D, the lower your chance of relapse and we found that for each 10 nanomole increase in vitamin D which is a standard measure of concentration of vitamin D in the blood, you can reduce your risk of having an attack of MS by about 10 per cent and therefore doubling your vitamin D will reduce your risk by up to 50 per cent which is really a very, very major result." Dr Bill Carroll is the head of neurology at the Charles Gardner Hospital in Perth and the chairman of MS Research Australia.
Dr Carroll says it's a significant finding. "Previously we thought vitamin D levels were important in susceptibility that is the risk of contracting MS," he said.
"Now it does look as though vitamin D might have a role in how MS actually behaves and if this finding can be reproduced in a larger trial, that you can actually reduce the relapse rate and that is the accumulation of disability with high levels of vitamin D, then that is very exciting." The findings will be tested in a larger clinical trial throughout Australia over the next few years.
But Professor Taylor says he's already advising people with MS to take safe levels of vitamin D supplements. He says before people take extra vitamin D, they need to check with their doctor to make sure the level of calcium in their bloodstream is normal, and their kidneys are normal.
"Because if you take extra vitamin D and you don't have normal calcium or you don't have normal kidney function, that can actually cause problems," he said. Tags: health, diseases-and-disorders, multiple-sclerosis, science-and-technology, research, australia
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