This is another tout for taking your doses of vitamin D. If you have not already figured it out this is one thing that is easily supplemented and safe to do that prevents a lot of insidious weakening of the body. Our culture and present lifestyles typically do not provide enough sunlight yet it is not as if you body will give a real warning.
Anyway, statistical analysis has picked up a modest signal that appears to suggest that the mother’s exposure to sunlight may be linked to a predisposition to MS. This is obviously a weak link but certainly an excellent argument for supplementation during pregnancy. Another good reason to do what should be done in any event.
I often think that so much of our work has gone toward establishing minimum levels of supplementation for the range of substances that our body needs in small quantities. This is possibly an error.
I have seen vitamin D dosage drift with additional findings from 400 IU to the present 1000 IU. I personally take 2000 IU to put myself well on the safe side of my needs. This is perfectly safe.
There is also a lot of controversy around dosage levels of vitamin C of Linus Pauling fame. Many act as though a 1000 IU is excessive. Yet in the proper buffered form it is possible to consume 15,000 IU which is appropriate for a person who weighs around a hundred kilo. Pauling himself was taking 13,000 IU.
I would not be saying this about obscure trace metals that are provided in possibly a poorly accepted form, but for these particularly important and well understood products it is possible to be aggressive.
Sun-shy mothers may raise MS risk in babies: study
Thu Apr 29, 2010 7:05pm EDT
(Reuters) - Children whose mothers had low exposure to sunlight during their first three months of pregnancy may have a higher risk of developing multiple sclerosis later in life, a study in Australia has found.
Low vitamin D levels have long been linked to a higher risk of MS. Experts suspect an expectant mother's lack of exposure to sunlight - the main source of vitamin D - may affect the fetus's central nervous system or immune system, and predispose it to developing MS later in life.
In the Australian study, researchers combed birth records of 1,524 MS patients born between 1920 and 1950, and found there were more of them born in the months of November and December.
This means their first trimester occurred during the winter months of April to June, a time when expectant mothers in the southern hemisphere may prefer to be indoors to escape the cold.
Conversely, there were far fewer MS patients who were born in May and June - meaning their first trimesters were in the early summer months of September to November.
"The risk of multiple sclerosis was around 30 percent higher for those born in the early summer months of November and December compared to the months of May and June," the researchers wrote in a statement.
The research, by Judith Staples and Lynette Lim at the Australian National University in Canberra
Vitamin D may be particularly important for the development of the fetus's central nervous system, the investigators wrote.
"Vitamin D supplementation for the prevention of multiple sclerosis might also need to be considered during in utero development," they wrote in the paper.
Their findings were supported by previous studies conducted in the northern hemisphere which found more cases of MS among people born in May, whose mothers probably had little exposure to sunlight in their first trimester during the colder months of September to November.
MS -- more prevalent in regions that are further away from the equator -- can cause permanent disability with symptoms such as numbness or weakness in one or more limbs, partial or complete loss of vision, tremors and an unsteady gait.
(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn)
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