geoffrey modest medical blogs

And another vitamin D study. This one showing a relationship with multiple sclerosis (see doi:10.1212/WNL.0000000000004489). Details: --Prospective, nested-control study of women in the Finnish Maternity Cohort, where there were 1.8 million stored serum samples from over 800,000 pregnant women --age when  25(OH) D levels were collected: 28; 25(OH) D levels:  55% <30 nmol /L (12 ng/ml), 38% 30-50 nmol /L (12-20 ng/ml), 7% >50 nmol /L. --age of sample collection: 29; age when multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosed: 37 --the  25(OH) D levels ​ had the expected seasonal variation average baseline: in this case average levels of 20-25 nmol /L in the winter and peaked at 45-50 nmol /L in August --1092 women developed multiple sclerosis (MS) between 1983 and 2009 --cases were matched to 2123 controls by date of birth and area of residence Results: --50 nmol /L (20 ng/ml) increase in 25(OH) D levels was associated wi...

several articles have come out over the past few months on vitamin d. there are a slew of them sent out over the past couple of years in the dropbox, including review articles (eg  vit d review nejm 2007 , or N Engl J Med 2007;357:266-81) highlighting the vast array of possible important actions of vitamin D in immune function, cancer prevention, heart disease prevention, as well as the better documented effects in bone health and preventing falls in elderly. last year there was an article finding that obese adolescents with low vitamin D had improved insulin sensitivity on repleting vitamin D levels (see  vit d and insulin sens adol am j clin nutr 2013  in dropbox, or doi: 10.3945/ajcn.112.050013). here are 3 more articles with more mixed results. 1. large meta-analysis of vitamin d supplementation and bone mineral density/BMD (see  vit d and bmd review lancet 2014  in dropbox, or doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61647-5). included 23 s...