vitamin d

Posted on Multiple Sclerosis

Sunshine may shield children, young adults from Multiple Sclerosis

Sunshine may shield children, young adults from MS
Sunshine may shield children, young adults from MS


Living in sunny locations and spending time outdoors may raise the risk for skin cancer, but a new study led by UC San Francisco and the Australian National University shows that in children and young adults, sun exposure may protect against multiple sclerosis. The study follows previous work by other researchers that has demonstrated an association between increased ultraviolet exposure in childhood and lower odds of adult MS.

The study included 332 participants aged between 3 to 22, who had had MS for an average of seven months. Their locations and amount of sun exposure were matched by age and sex to 534 participants without MS, the researchers reported in their study, which publishes in the online issue of Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, on Dec. 8, 2021.

In questionnaires filled in by participants with MS or their parents, 19 percent stated that they spent less than 30 minutes daily outdoors during the previous summer, compared to 6 percent of those who did not have MS.  When the researchers adjusted for MS risks, like smoking and female sex, they found that the participants who spent an average of 30 minutes to one hour outdoors daily had a 52 percent lower chance of MS, compared to those who spent an average of less than 30 minutes outdoors daily.

“Sun exposure is known to boost vitamin D levels,” said co-senior author Emmanuelle Waubant, MD, PhD, professor in the UCSF Department of Neurology and of the Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “It also stimulates immune cells in the skin that have a protective role in diseases such as MS. Vitamin D may also change the biological function of the immune cells and, as such, play a role in protecting against autoimmune diseases.”

Progression Slower in Pediatric MS, Despite Inflammatory Onset

While MS usually strikes adults between the ages of 20 to 50, some 3 to 5 percent of the approximately one million patients in the United States with the condition begin experiencing symptoms in childhood. Pediatric-onset MS is initially highly inflammatory, but takes longer than adults to advance, with symptoms of secondary progression, such as moderate to severe weakness, poor coordination and bowel and bladder control, occurring on average 28 years after disease onset, according to experts. However, these disability landmarks are reached approximately 10 years earlier than in adult MS. 

The researchers also found an association with the intensity of sunlight and estimated that residents of Florida would be 21 percent less likely than residents of New York to have MS. They noted that sun exposure was “dose-dependent,” the longer the exposure the lower the risk. And even exposure in the first year of life seemed to protect against MS, they said.

Fortunately, the use of sunscreen does not appear to lessen the therapeutic effects of sunlight in warding off MS, noted Waubant, who is also director of the UCSF Regional Pediatric Multiple Sclerosis Center. Clinical trials are needed to determine if “increasing sun exposure or vitamin D supplementation can prevent the development of MS or alter disease course post-diagnosis,” she said. Meanwhile, “advising regular time in the sun of at least 30 minutes daily especially during summer, using sun protection as needed, especially for first degree relatives of MS patients, may be a worthwhile intervention to reduce the incidence of MS.”

Limited sun exposure and/or low levels of vitamin D have been associated with other conditions. These include Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, as well as schizophrenia and other auto-immune diseases like Type 1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease and lupus. 

Posted on Pain Management

Vitamin D and Chronic Pain by Dr. Andrea Furlan MD PhD

Vitamin D and Chronic Pain by Dr. Andrea Furlan MD PhD - YouTube


Doctor Andrea Furlan explains what Vitamin D does in the body, what are the sources to obtain Vitamin D and how much should a person take of Vitamin D supplements. She also explains that it is important not to take too much Vitamin D because it can be toxic.

Posted on Pain Management

Vitamin D and Chronic Pain

Vitamin D and Chronic Pain by Dr. Andrea Furlan MD PhD - YouTube


Doctor Andrea Furlan explains what Vitamin D does in the body, what are the sources to obtain Vitamin D and how much should a person take of Vitamin D supplements. She also explains that it is important not to take too much Vitamin D because it can be toxic.


Posted on Lupus

Vitamin D deficiency linked to metabolic changes in patients with lupus – study

Eggs and Vitamin D

Patients with lupus are more likely to have metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance – both factors linked to heart disease – if they have lower vitamin D levels, a new study reveals.

Researchers believe that boosting vitamin D levels may improve control of these cardiovascular risk factors, as well as improving long-term outcomes for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Given that photosensitivity is a key feature of SLE, the scientists say that a combination of avoiding the sun, using high-factor sunblock and living in more northerly countries may contribute to lower levels of vitamin D in lupus patients. Patients with more severe disease also had lower vitamin D levels.

An international research team, led by experts at the University of Birmingham and University of Manchester, studied vitamin D levels in 1,163 SLE patients across 33 centres in 11 countries (UK, USA, Canada, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, Turkey, South Korea and Mexico), publishing its findings in Rheumatology.

Report co-author Dr John A Reynolds, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Rheumatology at the University of Birmingham, commented: “Our results suggest that co-existing physiological abnormalities may contribute to long-term cardiovascular risk early on in SLE.

“We found a link between lower levels of vitamin D and metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Further studies could confirm whether restoring vitamin D levels helps to reduce these cardiovascular risk factors and improve quality of life for patients with lupus.”

Lupus is an uncommon incurable immune system illness, more common in women, where the immune system is overactive, causing inflammation anywhere in the body. Untreated, the condition threatens irreversible damage to major organs including kidneys, heart, lungs and brain.

Metabolic syndrome is a combination of diabetes, high blood pressure (hypertension), abnormal cholesterol levels, and obesity. People with metabolic syndrome are at greater risk of getting coronary heart disease, stroke and other conditions affecting the blood vessels.

The researchers note that patients with SLE have an excess cardiovascular risk, up to 50 times that seen in people without the condition – this cannot be attributed to traditional cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure or smoking, alone.

The mechanisms underlying the association between high blood pressure and low vitamin D in SLE are not clear, but researchers believe they may be linked to impact of vitamin D deficiency on the renin-angiotensin hormone system, which regulates blood pressure, fluid and electrolyte balance, as well as systemic vascular resistance.

“This is the largest-ever study examining associations between vitamin D levels and metabolic syndrome in SLE; it also has the advantage of being an international cohort with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds – generating results that will be applicable across many settings,” commented Dr. Reynolds.

Posted on Diabetes

Vitamin D deficiency does not increase risk of type 1 diabetes

Vitamin D gel capsules. from Michele Blackwell

Genetically determined vitamin D levels do not have a large effect on risk of type 1 diabetes in Europeans, according to a study published 25th February 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Despoina Manousaki from the CHU Sainte Justine and the University of Montreal, Canada and colleagues.

Type 1 diabetes is a relatively common autoimmune disease that inflicts substantial lifelong illness and significant economic burden. Its incidence is increasing worldwide, and there are no known interventions that can be used to prevent the disease. Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with type 1 diabetes in observational studies, but evidence of a causal effect from randomized controlled trials is lacking. In the new study, the researchers used a Mendelian randomization design to test whether genetically decreased vitamin D levels increase risk of type 1 diabetes. Mendelian randomization is a method of using measured variation in disease-related genes to examine the causal effect of an exposure on a disease. The two-sample Mendelian randomization study involved a vitamin D genome-wide association study (GWAS) including 443,734 Europeans, and a type 1 diabetes GWAS including 9,358 cases and 15,705 controls.

The results do not support a large effect of vitamin D levels on risk of type 1 diabetes (odds ratio: 1.09, 95% confidence interval: 0.86-1.40, p=0.48). However, smaller effects may exist, and the results may not be applicable to non-European populations. The findings suggest that the previous epidemiological associations between vitamin D and type 1 diabetes could be due to confounding factors, such as latitude and exposure to sunlight. According to Dr Manousaki: “Our findings do not support a large effect of vitamin D levels on type 1 diabetes, but there may be smaller effects which we could not detect. Until further evidence from large RCTs, we cannot suggest the use of vitamin D supplements as a strategy to prevent type 1 diabetes in individuals at risk, for instance siblings or offspring of people with type 1 diabetes”.