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The so-called sunshine vitamin, which can be obtained from food or manufactured by human skin exposed to the sun, plays a key role in boosting the immune system, researchers believe.

In particular it triggers and arms the body's T cells, the cells in the body that seek out and destroy any invading bacteria and viruses.

Scientists at the University of Copenhagen have discovered that Vitamin D is crucial to activating our immune defences and that without sufficient intake of the vitamin, the killer cells of the immune system – T cells – will not be able to react to and fight off serious infections in the body...........................

http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseact ... ageid=1334

To me, this deepens the whole MS to immune system mystery. Do we want to stimulate or dampen the immune system? Both vitamin D and LDN appear to strengthen the immune system - why then do they seem to be beneficial to people with MS?

tzootsi wrote:To me, this deepens the whole MS to immune system mystery. Do we want to stimulate or dampen the immune system? Both vitamin D and LDN appear to strengthen the immune system - why then do they seem to be beneficial to people with MS?

Vitamin D3 also alters the bodies respons to the Epstein Barr Virus. It down-regulates (is that the correct phrase?) the way in which T cells react to EBV. EBV is a prerequisite of having MS. The virus is reported as being much more active during an MS relapse and viral activity seems to play a role in triggering MS disease activity.

There is a significant body of knowledge that links MS and bacterial infection.

tzootsi wrote:To me, this deepens the whole MS to immune system mystery. Do we want to stimulate or dampen the immune system? Both vitamin D and LDN appear to strengthen the immune system - why then do they seem to be beneficial to people with MS?

it may be that the autoimmune hypothesis is not correct. The more we learn, the more we realize we do not know.

......or it may be one of several correct ideas.

Here's a link to a good review paper on vitamin D. The full paper is available for free. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15951480

NHE

First, I should state that this in not coming from my nero (namely because I don't have one ) The doctor who's been treating me is both an MD and a naturopath and has beem most helpful in giving me good advice in regards to my MS. He's very big on vitamin D, not just for MS patients.

The latest news he gave me was regarding a study, where pwMS were given high daily doses of D, around 70,000 units. Through MRI scans, they found that lesions were actually shrinking! I wish I could point you to the study, but appearantly, it has yet to be released. I just wanted to share this exciting bit of info.

He also strongly advocates getting plenty of sun, as the body of a white person can produce 25,000 untis simple by spending a half hour in the sun. Another advantage to this is that the body knows how to essentially shut off vitamin D production before it starts reaching toxic levels. Of course, always take care not to get sunburned!

yes it turns out that vitamin D is a hormone. I had the worse time trying to figure out what it was because everyone was calling it something different. it is a very very important hormone . it is not a vitamin because we can make it ourselves. weird how we call paying attention to nutrition homeopathic and regular medicine that is really the thing that is killing us is the main stream. also I think there are things like the cortisol/insulin relationship for example. too much insulin not enough cortisol= hypoglycemia at least that is what is happening to me. also there is that silly mistep in heme sythesis and all that entails. hey without D, calcium, magnesium where does that leave us. I wonder how manythings get ignored after the major granddaddy of diagnosises is made. congradulations, you have MS now every health problem you have from here on in will be blamed on this. keep in mind that I have had almost every symptoms that you all have yet I have only had one central scar that actually later disappeared.

Apuman wrote:high daily doses of D, around 70,000 units.

That's fascinating. I am looking forwards to the publication. Thanks!

Do you know any other details, the size of the study, it's location?

Sorry, I'm afraid not. So far, I havn't found anything searching the internet. I'll ask my doctor more about it next time I see him.

Thanks

The latest news he gave me was regarding a study, where pwMS were given high daily doses of D, around 70,000 units....

... Another advantage to this is that the body knows how to essentially shut off vitamin D production before it starts reaching toxic levels.

I'd be careful here. That's an incredibly high dosage of vitamin D. The body does regulate the amount of active 1,25 D circulating, but vitamin D toxicity and hypercalcemia can still be concerns.

agree. if the 25(OH)D3 gets up over 250 you're into the hypercalcemia risk range. i accidentally got up to 271 recently. d'oh!