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It is difficult to find any serious study on things that cannot have a patent, but this time we have an important one:

Vitamin D supplementation differentially affects seasonal multiple sclerosis disease activity
Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 3.761/full

Objectives

Low ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation causes hypovitaminosis D, which is a known risk factor for multiple sclerosis (MS) and associated with MS disease activity. Our objective is to test whether vitamin D supplementation is most effective in lowering disease activity during the period of the year with low UVB radiation and consequently low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) concentration.

Conclusions

Our study demonstrated the modulation of seasonal MS disease activity through vitamin D supplementation. Given the prominent reduction in the quarterly relapse rate in late winter/early spring, our data indicate a beneficial effect of supplementing MS patients with vitamin D, especially during this period of the year.

"During vitamin D supplementation (18,950 international units/week (mean, SD 3,397)), serum 25(OH)D3 concentration increased by 51 nmol/L"

50nmol/l boost - exactly what i was after with first megadose regimen a decade ago. using the 10d x 50K IU / day recommended by the local hospital, target serum level was exceeded; took me from around 80 at the start, up into the 150 ballpark.

then later when i had spent considerable time and effort working on lots of different nutrients, i tried a lower megadose (ie 8d x 50K IU/d) since at that time i only wanted to get from ~100 to 150nmol/L.

the reduced 8 day megadose resulted in a serum boost from 103 nmol/L to 271 nmol/L. well over three times the dose response obtained in my earlier generally malnourished condition.

oh those pesky co-factors! would be interesting to have a look a couple other things, eg range of dose responses in this study, any correlations with subjects' status for other relevant essential nutrients. no time for it right now though!

frodo wrote:It is difficult to find any serious study on things that cannot have a patent, but this time we have an important one

There is a lot of funding outside of industry. I searched "vitamin D multiple sclerosis" on pubmed and got 1088 results.

vitamin D supplementation has been recommended in MS clinically for > 10 year

More related news. This time I would say that they support vit-D supplementation

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with disability and disease progression in multiple sclerosis patients independently of oxidative and nitrosative stress

http://www.jns-journal.com/article/S002 ... text?cc=y=

Highlights

•Vitamin D deficiency is associated with disability and progression of disease in multiple sclerosis patients.
•Vitamin D is not associated with oxidative and nitrosative stress in patients with multiple sclerosis.
•Vitamin D deficiency may contribute with 11.5% of increase in EDSS.
•Patients with 25(OH)D < 20 ng/mL showed higher EDSS and MSSS.
•The present study showed a negative association between low levels of NOx and total antioxidant capacity and MS.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess vitamin D status in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and to evaluate whether it was associated with oxidative and nitrosative stress (O&NS) markers and disability. This study included 137 patients with MS and 218 healthy controls. The markers evaluated were serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, lipid hydroperoxides, advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP), nitric oxide metabolites (NOx), and total radical-trapping antioxidant parameter TRAP/UA. Patients with 25(OH)D < 20 ng/mL showed higher EDSS (p = 0.016), MSSS (p = 0.005) and lower AOPP (p = 0.046) than those with 25(OH)D ≥ 20 ng/mL. After the binary logistic regression analyses, EDSS and MSSS remained significantly associated with vitamin D deficiency. We showed that lower levels of 25(OH)D were associated with higher EDSS and MSSS independently of variables such as O&NS, age, sex, body mass index, ethnicity, MS therapy, use of interferon beta, and clinical forms of MS (odds ratio: 1.380, 95% confidence interval 1.030–1.843, p = 0.031). Moreover, the study showed an association between serum levels of 25(OH)D and EDSS (r2 = 0.115, p = 0.002), demonstrating that 25(OH)D may contribute with 11.5% of increase in EDSS. Our results suggest that vitamin D deficiency may be considered one of the predictors of the disability in MS patients, independently of their redox status and influence the progression of disability in MS.