Vit D
d3
In Australia, Blackmores (brand name) also do a 1000IU D3 which is available from chemists or the supermarket.
Hi all
I'm another D3 convert and have been taking it for a while now. looking back on it my main exacerbations were all around particularly after my two preganancies. I wondered why this was. There is a lot written about why preganancy should act as a trigger and my own conclusions were two fold- hormonal changes and depletion of Vitamin D for baby bone making. I try to eat healthily and follow most of the guidelines laid down in the Best Bet diet which involves no dairy- most peoples primary source of Vit D. Consequently, with ms and entering into my 40's with the spectre of oesteoporosis also looming, I felt a supplement was important. I live in London and am taking something called readily available here called "Calcichew D3 Forte". The recommended dose is 2 tablets daily each containing 1250mg calcium carbonate equivalent to 500mg calcium and 400iu colecalciferol. Like Bromley I wonder about increasing this dose but am wary due to risk of kidney stones particularly as my fluid intake is probably not as high as it should be. I feel the ms makes me go to the lavatory (sorry folks!) enough as it is!! Of course guys get ms too and they dont do the preganancy thing altho as we all know ms is more prevalent in women.
Muu
I'm another D3 convert and have been taking it for a while now. looking back on it my main exacerbations were all around particularly after my two preganancies. I wondered why this was. There is a lot written about why preganancy should act as a trigger and my own conclusions were two fold- hormonal changes and depletion of Vitamin D for baby bone making. I try to eat healthily and follow most of the guidelines laid down in the Best Bet diet which involves no dairy- most peoples primary source of Vit D. Consequently, with ms and entering into my 40's with the spectre of oesteoporosis also looming, I felt a supplement was important. I live in London and am taking something called readily available here called "Calcichew D3 Forte". The recommended dose is 2 tablets daily each containing 1250mg calcium carbonate equivalent to 500mg calcium and 400iu colecalciferol. Like Bromley I wonder about increasing this dose but am wary due to risk of kidney stones particularly as my fluid intake is probably not as high as it should be. I feel the ms makes me go to the lavatory (sorry folks!) enough as it is!! Of course guys get ms too and they dont do the preganancy thing altho as we all know ms is more prevalent in women.
Muu
Last edited by Muu on Tue Nov 07, 2006 6:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
hey loobie no probs 
heya muu i agree with the whole idea of pregnancy possibly being a drain. i kind of always wondered about how the third trimester could be a relief from symptoms for some, and then post partum cause a bit of a relapse. i sort of thought maybe in the first months of pregnancy the body is drained and goes downhill, then maybe the extra care and supplementation recommended during pregnancy might actually kick in for the mom by the third trimester, and then when she has the baby she gets a double whammy - no more pregnancy vitamins (i have no idea what postpartum vitamins are recommended) and on top of that losing nutrition through lactation.
i also have a friend who suffered from serious post partum depression, and her husband has ankylosing spondylistis - i recommended the big doses of vitamin d and they report big improvements. they took 1200mg per day plus a multi which probably has the good ol' 400IU. hmm now that i read that i'm thinking what the heck does 1200 mg D3 mean... don't have time to figure out if she meant 1200 iu but either way it seems to be doing them some good!
heya muu i agree with the whole idea of pregnancy possibly being a drain. i kind of always wondered about how the third trimester could be a relief from symptoms for some, and then post partum cause a bit of a relapse. i sort of thought maybe in the first months of pregnancy the body is drained and goes downhill, then maybe the extra care and supplementation recommended during pregnancy might actually kick in for the mom by the third trimester, and then when she has the baby she gets a double whammy - no more pregnancy vitamins (i have no idea what postpartum vitamins are recommended) and on top of that losing nutrition through lactation.
i also have a friend who suffered from serious post partum depression, and her husband has ankylosing spondylistis - i recommended the big doses of vitamin d and they report big improvements. they took 1200mg per day plus a multi which probably has the good ol' 400IU. hmm now that i read that i'm thinking what the heck does 1200 mg D3 mean... don't have time to figure out if she meant 1200 iu but either way it seems to be doing them some good!
I don’t know if vit D has much to do with MS, but I live in Spain, just inear the coast and i use to spend 3 or 4 months (holidays) going to the beach, and I have MS. Do not forget that one of the highest ratios in the world is Sardinia, and they are plenty of sun (winter and summer). If it has any incidence I don’t think is very important.
will restate here that "ms" is probably not something you can apply across the board statements to. it is just a convenient heading for "a bunch of somewhat similar things wrong with these people that we don't really get".
i don't think any study has claimed that D3 helped everyone unequivocably, but the percentages are so good that it may have benefit for a bigger percentage of patients than some other ideas.
there are probably other factors working in combination to contribute to the membership of other subsets of ms patients.
my 2 c
i don't think any study has claimed that D3 helped everyone unequivocably, but the percentages are so good that it may have benefit for a bigger percentage of patients than some other ideas.
there are probably other factors working in combination to contribute to the membership of other subsets of ms patients.
my 2 c
-
lyndacarol
- Family Elder
- Posts: 3394
- Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:00 pm
- Contact:
Pregnancy and insulin?
Hey, Legs. The well-known connections between pregnancy and MS have always brought questions. As with the documented vitamin D connections, why aren't researchers starting with what they know and doing work to find out the "why?"
Can we recruit an obstetrician or physician with a special interest in obstetrics here? I was pregnant 25 years ago, but am really ignorant about what was happening in my body! Of course, my suspicions about insulin prompt me to ask if a woman's body produces more insulin in the third trimester in order to put weight on the baby. As when the pancreas overcompensates with too much insulin in response to glucose in the bloodstream, perhaps the mother produces lots of insulin for the baby and this becomes "excess" after the birth (resulting in an exacerbation after delivery).
I'll have to do more investigating into this. Help me out if you can.
Can we recruit an obstetrician or physician with a special interest in obstetrics here? I was pregnant 25 years ago, but am really ignorant about what was happening in my body! Of course, my suspicions about insulin prompt me to ask if a woman's body produces more insulin in the third trimester in order to put weight on the baby. As when the pancreas overcompensates with too much insulin in response to glucose in the bloodstream, perhaps the mother produces lots of insulin for the baby and this becomes "excess" after the birth (resulting in an exacerbation after delivery).
I'll have to do more investigating into this. Help me out if you can.
-
notasperfectasyou
- Family Elder
- Posts: 802
- Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2006 3:00 pm
- Location: Northern Virginia
- Contact:
why make it difficult?
You can get D3 in a soft gel 2000 size from Vitamin Shoppe. They have an online store too. I'm not looking to plug them, but I searched for this stuff for a long time until I found it there. I got to a physical store to get it, but I know they have an online store too. napay
It would be really nice to be able to put links in here
If I have included a bad link, google the word "Scholar", click link for "Google Scholar". Search for the name of the paper and author in Google Scholar.
If I have included a bad link, google the word "Scholar", click link for "Google Scholar". Search for the name of the paper and author in Google Scholar.
Lyndacarol
when I was expecting my first child (some 14 years ago now) I was given a "Lucozade" test which involved drinking a bottle of the high energy drink (revolting stuff that it is!) followed by a blood test about an hour later. If I recall correctly, the test was used to highlight the impact of the drink on the woman's sugar levels and how efficiently each woman's body dealt it. Insulin production connection here?! Apparently the test helped identify those women likely to develop diabetes as a result of their pregnancy. Looking at it from an ms standpoint this thread has flagged up lots of markers- vit D depletion, hormonal changes, insulin activity and the general impact of pregnancy on the body. Am I the only one thinking that there must be a connection here- perhaps not as the trigger for ms but in increasing susceptibility. Of course guys get ms too but the male to female ratio is such that female genetic ( another marker!) make up must come into play too.
Muu
when I was expecting my first child (some 14 years ago now) I was given a "Lucozade" test which involved drinking a bottle of the high energy drink (revolting stuff that it is!) followed by a blood test about an hour later. If I recall correctly, the test was used to highlight the impact of the drink on the woman's sugar levels and how efficiently each woman's body dealt it. Insulin production connection here?! Apparently the test helped identify those women likely to develop diabetes as a result of their pregnancy. Looking at it from an ms standpoint this thread has flagged up lots of markers- vit D depletion, hormonal changes, insulin activity and the general impact of pregnancy on the body. Am I the only one thinking that there must be a connection here- perhaps not as the trigger for ms but in increasing susceptibility. Of course guys get ms too but the male to female ratio is such that female genetic ( another marker!) make up must come into play too.
Muu
Last edited by Muu on Wed Nov 08, 2006 4:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
Wonderfulworld
- Family Elder
- Posts: 776
- Joined: Sun Aug 27, 2006 2:00 pm
- Location: Ireland
- Contact:
Pregnancy, hormones, etc has been studied by Rhonda Voskhul -she was trialling estriol a few years ago. As far as I remember also uric acid is increased during pg, so it would scavenge nitric oxide, an MS baddie.
Logically, a baby is the biggest "foreign body" your own body ever has to accept, so it would make sense that the immune system dies down during the pg, and maybe it bounces back with extra force after the birth.
WW
Logically, a baby is the biggest "foreign body" your own body ever has to accept, so it would make sense that the immune system dies down during the pg, and maybe it bounces back with extra force after the birth.
WW
Note of caution: be sure to check you don't have a Vitamin D/Vitamin A combination in the vitamin D supplements.
I recently went to replenish my vitamin D and had a hard time finding a formulation that only had D3 without also having vitamin A. The only pills available at the health store I went to were the vegetarian derived D2, which as jimmylegs pointed out, is not the effective form to take, or a D3:vitamin A combo. I feel comfortable going to to 4000IU with vitamin D, but not repetitively taking taking high doses of vitamin A along with it - the vitamin D:Vitamin A combo pills are not designed for multiple daily doses.
I had a nutritionist provide me with a vitamin D emulsion, which sounds similar to what jimmlylegs described. I will check the label to get the name of it, it is not a prescription. And inexpensive, a bottle is about seven bucks. Each small drop is 400 IU. It is very easy to add to food, especially soups and cereals, and is essentially tasteless. Much better than a pill, and probably is absorbed better.
I recently went to replenish my vitamin D and had a hard time finding a formulation that only had D3 without also having vitamin A. The only pills available at the health store I went to were the vegetarian derived D2, which as jimmylegs pointed out, is not the effective form to take, or a D3:vitamin A combo. I feel comfortable going to to 4000IU with vitamin D, but not repetitively taking taking high doses of vitamin A along with it - the vitamin D:Vitamin A combo pills are not designed for multiple daily doses.
I had a nutritionist provide me with a vitamin D emulsion, which sounds similar to what jimmlylegs described. I will check the label to get the name of it, it is not a prescription. And inexpensive, a bottle is about seven bucks. Each small drop is 400 IU. It is very easy to add to food, especially soups and cereals, and is essentially tasteless. Much better than a pill, and probably is absorbed better.
Vitamin D, Pregnancy and Progesterone
Hi all
Here’s some info on pregnancy and MS. And yes it seems like Vitamin D3 levels rise in the third trimester and apparently drop post partum, per the following abstract.
Hormonal Changes During Late Pregnancy and Early Postpartum (If you click through there’s a link for free access to the full article.)
Progesterone Mediated Immunosuppression: Inhibition of K+ Channels
So, progesterone seems to block potassium channels, including Kv1.3 as a means of immune suppression. The “other side of the equation” is that some MS research suggests that potassium channel blockade may act to suppress immune mediated neurological diseases.
Potassium Channel Kv1.3 is Highly Expressed in MS Brain
(Guys--you have progesterone too. )
Sharon
Here’s some info on pregnancy and MS. And yes it seems like Vitamin D3 levels rise in the third trimester and apparently drop post partum, per the following abstract.
Hormonal Changes During Late Pregnancy and Early Postpartum (If you click through there’s a link for free access to the full article.)
WonderfulworldWe report that during the third trimester pregnancy…..urinary cortisol and norepinephrine excretion and serum levels of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin were 2- to 3-fold higher than postpartum values.
Besides estriol, progesterone is another hormone that’s high during pregnancy, drops after birth and may be a factor that suppresses the immune system during pregnancy but not after birth, when levels are much lower.Logically, a baby is the biggest "foreign body" your own body ever has to accept, so it would make sense that the immune system dies down during the pg, and maybe it bounces back with extra force after the birth.
Progesterone Mediated Immunosuppression: Inhibition of K+ Channels
The mechanism by which progesterone causes localized suppression of the immune response during pregnancy has remained elusive…….
Progesterone effectively blocked a broad spectrum of K+ channels, reducing both Kv1.3
We propose that direct inhibition of K+ channels in T cells by progesterone contributes to progesterone-induced immunosuppression.
So, progesterone seems to block potassium channels, including Kv1.3 as a means of immune suppression. The “other side of the equation” is that some MS research suggests that potassium channel blockade may act to suppress immune mediated neurological diseases.
Potassium Channel Kv1.3 is Highly Expressed in MS Brain
I find it all fascinating. Seems to me progesterone is a specific Kv1.3 antagonist. Progesterone also acts in the nervous system to provide neuroprotection and support myelination and spinal cord recovery (mice).These studies provide further rationale for the use of specific Kv1.3 antagonists in MS.
(Guys--you have progesterone too.
)Sharon
Sharon,
Interesting stuff. I think you're on to something. On potassium channels, I had to add that there is another substance that's pre-clinical but could be promising...
Targeting effector memory T cells with a selective peptide inhibitor of Kv1.3 channels for therapy of autoimmune diseases.
ShK(L5) prevents and treats experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and suppresses delayed type hypersensitivity in rats. ShK(L5) might prove useful for therapy of autoimmune disorders.
<shortened url>
And that same group of researchers just came out with this:
Kv1.3 channels are a therapeutic target for T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.
Autoreactive memory T lymphocytes are implicated in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. Here we demonstrate that disease-associated autoreactive T cells from patients with type-1 diabetes mellitus or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are mainly CD4(+)CCR7(-)CD45RA(-) effector memory T cells (TEM cells) with elevated Kv1.3 potassium channel expression.
In contrast, T cells with other antigen specificities from these patients, or autoreactive T cells from healthy individuals and disease controls, express low levels of Kv1.3 and are predominantly naive or central-memory (TCM) cells. In TEM cells, Kv1.3 traffics to the immunological synapse during antigen presentation where it colocalizes with Kvbeta2, SAP97, ZIP, p56(lck), and CD4.
Although Kv1.3 inhibitors [ShK(L5)-amide (SL5) and PAP1] do not prevent immunological synapse formation, they suppress Ca(2+)-signaling, cytokine production, and proliferation of autoantigen-specific TEM cells at pharmacologically relevant concentrations while sparing other classes of T cells. Kv1.3 inhibitors ameliorate pristane-induced arthritis in rats and reduce the incidence of experimental autoimmune diabetes in diabetes-prone (DP-BB/W) rats. Repeated dosing with Kv1.3 inhibitors in rats has not revealed systemic toxicity. Further development of Kv1.3 blockers for autoimmune disease therapy is warranted.
<shortened url>
Interesting stuff. I think you're on to something. On potassium channels, I had to add that there is another substance that's pre-clinical but could be promising...
Targeting effector memory T cells with a selective peptide inhibitor of Kv1.3 channels for therapy of autoimmune diseases.
ShK(L5) prevents and treats experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and suppresses delayed type hypersensitivity in rats. ShK(L5) might prove useful for therapy of autoimmune disorders.
<shortened url>
And that same group of researchers just came out with this:
Kv1.3 channels are a therapeutic target for T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases.
Autoreactive memory T lymphocytes are implicated in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. Here we demonstrate that disease-associated autoreactive T cells from patients with type-1 diabetes mellitus or rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are mainly CD4(+)CCR7(-)CD45RA(-) effector memory T cells (TEM cells) with elevated Kv1.3 potassium channel expression.
In contrast, T cells with other antigen specificities from these patients, or autoreactive T cells from healthy individuals and disease controls, express low levels of Kv1.3 and are predominantly naive or central-memory (TCM) cells. In TEM cells, Kv1.3 traffics to the immunological synapse during antigen presentation where it colocalizes with Kvbeta2, SAP97, ZIP, p56(lck), and CD4.
Although Kv1.3 inhibitors [ShK(L5)-amide (SL5) and PAP1] do not prevent immunological synapse formation, they suppress Ca(2+)-signaling, cytokine production, and proliferation of autoantigen-specific TEM cells at pharmacologically relevant concentrations while sparing other classes of T cells. Kv1.3 inhibitors ameliorate pristane-induced arthritis in rats and reduce the incidence of experimental autoimmune diabetes in diabetes-prone (DP-BB/W) rats. Repeated dosing with Kv1.3 inhibitors in rats has not revealed systemic toxicity. Further development of Kv1.3 blockers for autoimmune disease therapy is warranted.
<shortened url>