Multiple Sclerosis and Evaluation of Vitamin D Effect

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system with symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases. The symptoms vary depending on damage location. Some of the symptoms include cognitive disorders, anxiety and depression, visual impairment, respiratory, speech and swallowing disorders, muscle spasm and fatigue.

Due to the lack of a definitive treatment method, various therapeutic approaches are proposed to control the disease. Drugs are classified into attack control drugs, complication control drugs and disease-modifying drugs. Vitamin D is a hormone-like steroidal compound with immune modulatory and anti-inflammatory properties. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a variety of inflammatory, neurologic and autoimmune diseases.

Many studies on patients as well as experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis studies have shown that the administration of vitamin D reduces inflammation in inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system. As argued, vitamin D level was significantly lower in MS compared to healthy subjects as controls. Also, a higher level of vitamin D is reported in relapsing-remitting MS patients compared to patients with progressive MS. It is observed that higher serum levels of vitamin D can reduce the severity of symptoms, progress, and also delays the relapses. Few studies considered vitamin D to be ineffective in stopping or inhibition the disease. Despite the controversies concerning the role of vitamin D in MS progress, there is a lot of interest in further research in this regard with the hope of reaching a common ground. Therefore, frequent reviews of past and recent studies are essential to achieve the same results.