High-dose vitamin D can help delay progression to MS

Fewer patients on vitamin D had evidence of disease activity at 2 years in study

Taking high-dose cholecalciferol (vitamin D) as a supplement is safe and can nearly double the time it takes for people with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS), a first manifestation of neurological symptoms suggestive of multiple sclerosis (MS), to experience new disease activity.

That’s according to data from D-Lay-MS (NCT01817166), a Phase 3 clinical study that tested whether a high dose of cholecalciferol (100,000 IU) was safe and could delay the progression from CIS to clinically definite MS.

Eric Thouvenot, MD, PhD, who directed the study at the University Hospital of Nîmes, in France, presented the data at this year’s European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) annual meeting, which was held Sept. 18-20 online and in person in Copenhagen.

His oral presentation was titled “High-dose cholecalciferol reduces multiple sclerosis disease activity after a clinically isolated syndrome: results of a 24-month placebo-controlled randomized trial (D-Lay-MS).”

MS is caused by the immune system mistakenly launching an attack against the myelin sheath, a protective coating that wraps around nerve cells. While the exact causes of MS aren’t fully understood, low levels of vitamin D may increase the risk of developing the disease and result in more severe disability.

Vitamin D generally fails to prevent disease activity in relapsing-remitting MS

However, vitamin D supplementation, even at high doses, has generally failed to prevent relapses, brain lesions, or disability progression from occurring in people with relapsing-remitting MS, where relapses, periods when existing symptoms worsen or new symptoms appear, are alternated with remissions, when symptoms ease or disappear.

In the study, Thouvenot and other researchers conducted a clinical trial to test if high-dose cholecalciferol, a form of vitamin D that’s also produced naturally by the skin when exposed to sunlight, could delay conversion from CIS to MS.

For people with CIS to be diagnosed with MS, they must show evidence of damage to the myelin sheath that is disseminated in space, meaning damage that affects multiple areas of the brain and spinal cord, and in time, meaning it occurs over multiple points in time.

READ MORE