Vitamin D – could it stop 'modern’ diseases?

An award-winning writer and scientist believes a deficiency of Vitamin D in pregnant women is behind the increase in conditions such as MS, diabetes, schizophrenia and asthma

Scientists often liken the process of discovery to doing a jigsaw. At first, few pieces fit and the picture is a mystery. Then suddenly two or three pieces lock together and an image starts to take shape.

This is what is happening in the study of apparently unrelated, chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, diabetes and asthma. These conditions are increasingly common both in the UK and elsewhere; their causes have puzzled doctors and scientists for decades.

Now pieces of the jigsaw are starting to fit together – and they focus on vitamin D which is produced naturally in the skin when exposed to sunlight.

A deficiency in this crucial vitamin, thanks to our increasingly indoor lifestyles, is already blamed for the reappearance of rickets, the painful and deforming bone disease in children, in the UK. But gradually, evidence is emerging that links low vitamin D levels to a rise in a whole host of “modern” diseases, some of which were virtually unheard of in the pre-industrial era.

As a scientist and writer, I first realised the significance of vitamin D for prevention of ill-health some 12 years ago, at a time when it was only recognised as important for bone growth. I have researched and written extensively on the topic, including a report on the health benefits of sunlight - this at a time when official advice was to avoid the sun at all costs, especially when the sun is at its highest.

The report, published in 2004, gained support from the late Sir Richard Doll, the eminent epidemiologist who co-discovered the link between smoking and lung cancer. He had completed a clinical trial which found that people who took vitamin D supplements may live longer - and had he lived had wanted to do another. It has taken eight years to get that clinical trial started with Professor Julian Peto of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Called VIDAL, the trial is looking at benefits of supplementation and for any increase in life expectancy in over 65s.

Highlighting the benefits of vitamin D has led to at least some degree of change in official attitudes. We are now advised to spend some time in the sun at midday, while vitamin D supplements are advised for breastfed (but not bottlefed) babies from the first month of life.

My belief is that we could go much further – that vitamin D, given freely to all women in pregnancy, could be used to curb or prevent some major diseases including multiple sclerosis, diabetes, schizophrenia, asthma and several cancers; and that it might also be used to treat established disease, at least in early stages.

One crucial piece in the jigsaw has come from the study of birthdays. Links between birthdays and future life events have long been the territory of clairvoyants and mediums; and when evidence first emerged about a decade ago that people born at the end of winter were more likely to get multiple sclerosis and those born in autumn less so, many scientists found it hardly credible.

“It looked as if we were interested in star signs and futurology,” said George Ebers, emeritus professor in the Department of Department of Clinical Neurology at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, whose career has never deviated from scientific correctness. “But now we know that MS is associated with end of winter births, when shortage of sunshine is demonstrable and vitamin D levels are lowest. This suggests, in line with other observations, that vitamin D protects against the disease.”

THE POWER OF THE SUMMER SUN

Summer sun is at its maximum in June and July but vitamin D, generated in the skin by sunlight, takes two or three months to get into the general circulation. So we reach our maximum level of vitamin D in about September. Babies born in October or November have the best chance of a relatively high level of vitamin D during their final months in the womb. And this, the birthday evidence suggests, can protect them from MS, while the risk is higher for babies born at the end of winter.

This seasonal pattern in the risk of MS has now been found in eight different countries including Australia, winning over previously sceptical scientists. Less well known is the link between end of winter birthdays and an increased risk of several other diseases. Studies of thousands of birthdays in Europe, Canada and Australia over some 30 years have found that people born at this time are also at greater risk of type 1 diabetes, coeliac disease (gluten intolerance), schizophrenia and autism.

For a long time experts did not know what to make of this data, since these diseases had no obvious links. But now more conditions are being added to this list by the Oxford team. Writing in the peer-reviewed journal, BMC Medicine, in July 2012, Professor Ebers, working with Dr Sreeram Ramagopalan, has shown that the risk of rheumatoid arthritis, a digestive disease called ulcerative colitis and a distressing condition called systemic lupus erythematosus follows the same pattern of seasonal births. These are all autoimmune diseases, which occur when the body is attacked by its own immune system. Diabetes type 1 is also an autoimmune disease and in the case of coeliac disease the immune reaction is to wheat in the bowel. To date, at least 18 autoimmune diseases have been linked to low vitamin D levels – more than enough to demonstrate a pattern.

Full article here :http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Graham