MINNEAPOLIS, Minn — September 13, 2017 — Examining vitamin D levels in the blood may help predict whether a person is at risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a large study published the online issue of Neurology.
“There have only been a few small studies suggesting that levels of vitamin D in the blood can predict risk,” said Kassandra Munger, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. “Our study, involving a large number of women, suggests that correcting vitamin D deficiency in young and middle-age women may reduce their future risk of MS.”
For the study, researchers used a repository of blood samples from more than 800,000 women in Finland, taken as part of prenatal testing. Then the researchers identified 1,092 women who were diagnosed with MS an average of 9 years after giving the blood samples. They were compared with 2,123 women who did not develop the disease.
Deficient levels of vitamin D were defined as <30 nmol/L, insufficient levels were 30 to 49 nmol/L, and adequate levels were ≥50 nmol/L.
Of the women who developed MS, 58% had deficient levels of vitamin D, compared with 52% of the women who did not develop the disease.
Researchers found that with each 50 nmol/L increase in vitamin D levels in the blood, the risk of developing MS later in life decreased by 39%.
In addition, women who had deficient levels of vitamin D had a 43% higher risk of developing MS than women who had adequate levels as well as a 27% higher risk than women with insufficient levels.
“More research is needed on the optimal dose of vitamin D for reducing risk of MS,” said Munger. “But striving to achieve vitamin D sufficiency over the course of a person’s life will likely have multiple health benefits.”
Limitations of the study include that participants were primarily white women and therefore the findings may not be the same for other racial groups or men. Also, while the blood samples were taken an average of nine years before MS diagnosis, it is possible some women may have already had MS when blood was drawn and were not yet showing symptoms of the disease.
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