News Item - Study involving Vitamin D to shed light on MS prevention

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Study to shed light on MS prevention

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

Australian doctors have revealed details of the first study to prevent multiple sclerosis (MS).It could be as simple as taking a vitamin supplement.Scientists know that people who get less sunlight are more at risk of developing multiple sclerosis.That means people in Tasmania, where it is cooler, have five times the incidence of MS than warmer states such as Queensland.Now doctors plan to use that knowledge to set up Australia's first study to prevent the illness. "In principle, if it's the thing that counts for a five-fold difference, theoretically you could prevent 80 per cent of the cases and turn Tasmania into Queensland," Professor Ebers, from Oxford University, said.The body uses sunlight to produce vitamin D which plays a key role in both the immune and central nervous systems.In the trial, groups of high risk patients, including children of MS patients, would be given vitamin D supplements or small doses of UV radiation.The idea is that it would switch on a protective effect and stop the patients developing multiple sclerosis later in life."It isn't expensive, it's dirt cheap. It isn't risky, the amount that would be given is trivial compared to the amount you get sitting for an hour in the sun," Professor Ebers, from Oxford University, said."It's important for this condition and we may not have any other way of doing it, and it may be a good way of preventing a lot of people getting the disease," Dr Carroll, neurologist from Sir Gairdner Hospital in Perth, said. Maina Gordon was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis nine years ago."If it works and there is any reduction, think of it it would be 60 people instead of 75 people in Tasmania getting it that would be absolutely marvellous," she said.Similar prevention studies are also being planned for Scotland and Canada, where incidence of multiple sclerosis is very high.The research was presented at the World Congress of Neurology in Sydney.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/sophie_scott/newsitems/s1501523.htm