University Park, Pa. --- A small study conducted by researchers at Penn State and Helen Hayes Hospital in New York has shown that a daily dose of vitamin D 1000 IU or two and a half times the recommended dose for adults -- causes changes in blood chemistry that indicate positive effects for multiple sclerosis patients.
Dr. Margherita Cantorna, assistant professor of nutrition, says the study has not been in progress long enough to observe changes in the clinical symptoms of the disease in the patients who participated. However, blood samples drawn after just 6 months of Vitamin D supplementation, show an increase in transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGF-Beta) which is associated with the remission and suppression of the immune response which produces symptoms in MS patients. In addition, the researchers found a decrease in interleuken-2 which is associated with the cells that induce MS.
Cantorna's student, Brett Mahon, a doctoral candidate in nutrition, detailed the study results today (April 3) at the Experimental Biology 2001 conference in Orlando, Fla. The paper, "Altered Cytokine Profile in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis Following Vitamin D Supplementation," is co-authored by Dr. Felicia Cosman, medical director, Clinical Research Center, S. A. Gordon and J. Cruz, all of Helen Hayes Hospital, and Cantorna. Mahon is first author.
As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Cantorna and others had shown, in experiments with mice, that vitamin D supplementation could completely prevent the development of MS in susceptible animals. After Cantorna joined the faculty at Penn State, she learned of Dr. Cosman's research program which centers on investigating whether a low level vitamin D deficiency in MS patients might account for the incidence of brittle bones.
Cantorna asked Cosman for blood samples from the participating patients to see if the same changes she had observed in mice also occur in humans who
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Contact: Barbara Hale
bah@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State
2-Apr-2001