New hope for MS patients from UV light from the sun (beyond vitamin D)

[Guest guest]

http://www.naturalnews.com/028536_sunlight_multiple_sclerosis.html

(NaturalNews) It's not a new idea that multiple sclerosis (MS) is somehow tied

to sunlight -- or, rather, the lack of adequate exposure to sunlight. For more

than three decades, researchers have noted that MS is much more common in higher

latitudes than in the tropics. So, because bright sunlight is more abundant near

the equator and sunlight exposure results in the body producing vitamin D, some

scientists have reasoned that increased vitamin D levels may lower the risk of

MS.

In fact, for those who already have MS, a neurological disease marked by a

deterioration in nerves' electrical conduction, vitamin D may reduce their

symptoms, according to DeLuca, the Steenbock Research Professor of

Biochemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, in a study just

published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), DeLuca

and fellow researcher Becklund conclude the ultraviolet (UV) portion of

sunlight could play an even more important role than vitamin D in preventing

and/or controlling the MS.

" Since the 1970s, a lot of people have believed that sunlight worked through

vitamin D to reduce MS, " DeLuca, one of the world's top vitamin D researchers,

said in a statement to the media. " It's true that large doses of the active form

of vitamin D can block the disease in the animal model. That causes an

unacceptably high level of calcium in the blood, but we know that people at the

equator don't have this high blood calcium, even though they have a low

incidence of MS. So it seems that something other than vitamin D could explain

this geographic relationship. "

To try to better understand the impact sunshine could have on MS, Deluca and his

team worked with lab mice that are genetically bred to be susceptible to a

MS-like disease. The researchers triggered the disease in the animals by

injecting them with a protein derived from nerve fibers. Then the mice were

exposed to moderate levels of UV radiation (UVR) for a week. After the lab

rodents developed multiple sclerosis-type symptoms, they were exposed to UVR

every second or third day.

The UV exposure, which was equal to about two hours of direct summer sun, did

not change how many mice got an MS-type illness, but it did reduce the symptoms

of MS. Symptoms were especially reduced in the animals that were treated with UV

light ever other day.

While the scientists found that although the UV exposure did increase the level

of vitamin D in the mice, that effect by itself wasn't enough to cause such a

dramatic lessening of MS symptoms. " These results suggest that UVR is likely

suppressing disease independent of vitamin D production, and that vitamin D

supplementation alone may not replace the ability of sunlight to reduce MS

susceptibility, " the scientists concluded in their paper.

In a media statement, DeLuca pointed out that the exposure to UV light might

result in some reactive mechanism that blocks the autoimmune damage seen in MS.

" We are looking to identify what compounds are produced in the skin that might

play a role, but we honestly don't know what is going on, " he said. " If we can

find out what the UV is producing, maybe we could give that as a medicine. In

the short term, if we can define a specific wavelength of light that is active,

and it does not overlap with the wavelengths that cause cancer, we could expose

patients who have been diagnosed with MS to that wavelength, " DeLuca added.

Editor's note: NaturalNews is opposed to the use of animals in medical

experiments that expose them to harm. We present these findings in protest of

the way in which they were acquired.