Vitamin D and human health

Vitamin D and human health: not just a MS problem #MSBlog #MSResearch

"I was asked to fill in for Ram (Sreeram Ramagopalan) and do a talk on MS and vitamin D (vD) at the 'Vitamin D and Human Health: from gamete to the grave' conference hosted at our University. The programme was excellent."

"I am disappointed that I could not attend the whole meeting, but I had other teaching commitments that I could not get out of at short notice. After giving my talk I had a lot of questions from the audience and one person asked me how I could justify recommending such a large dose of vitamin D (5,000U per day) to MSers without class 1 evidence. I responded that it was not a large dose, but simply a physiological dose with the aim of making sure MSers are vitamin D replete. I mentioned that there have been studies done showing that much larger doses than 5,000U per day have been done that show that this level of supplementation is safe and this dose is within the current EFSA guidelines. Finally, I mentioned that this recommendation was not my personal recommendation, but I was simply endorsing the recommendations of the Vitamin D Council.

"The following are my slides from my talk. Please note there is no evidence that vD supplements are disease-modifying in MS. The low vD levels in MSers can be due to reverse causation, i.e. MS disease activity results in low vD levels not the other way around. The reverse causation hypothesis, however, is no reason to ignore low vD levels in MSers. The main reason for me recommending vD supplements is for other potential health reasons, in particular bone health. I see little reason to justify leaving MSers in a vD deficient  state. This is why I recommend a vD supplementation with the aim of keeping levels above 100nmol/L or 40ng/ml all year round."

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