Is there a link between a lack of vitamin D and multiple Sclerosis?

Spending more time in the sun or increasing our vitamin D intake could cut the chance of developing multiple sclerosis after scientists found that people with low vitamin D levels are at increased risk from the disorder.

A study by McGill University in Canada and Kings College London looked at 40,000 Europeans, 15,000 of whom were born with genes which made them naturally vitamin D deficient. They found that those with the genetic predisposition for lower levels of the vitamin were twice as likely to develop MS as those whose levels were normal.

Most vitamin D comes from direct sunlight although some is also present in foods including eggs, meat and oily fish like salmon, mackerel and sardines.

Vitamin D has several important functions:

• Is important for healthy bones – a lack of vitamin D can lead to bone deformities, and Osteomalacia (soft bones by the lack of vitamin D).

• We make it in our skin when we are exposed to sunlight, but some of it comes from our diet.

• Good food .sources include oily fish, eggs, fortified breakfast cereals and fortified fat spreads

• Some people - the elderly, pregnant and breastfeeding women, babies, children under the age of five, and those who do not get much sun - may not get enough and need supplements.

• Regulates the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body.

 Affecting more than 100,000 people in Britain, MS occurs when myelin, the fatty material which protects nerves is damaged, exposing the nerves and causing signaling problems between the brain and muscles. Currently there is no known cure for MS and it usually presents between the ages of 20 and 40 years and it affects almost three times as many women as men.

The research was published in the journal PLOS Medicine.