In recent years, Vitamin D has garnered the attention of MS physicians and researchers because epidemiological and laboratory studies have produced strong evidence that low vitamin D levels may play a role in causing MS. Now, leading researchers from around the country plan to converge in Boston to evaluate the feasibility of conducting what would be the largest clinical study ever undertaken to explore the role that Vitamin D may play in MS.
The symposium, scheduled for Oct. 17th, is sponsored by the Accelerated Cure Project for MS (based in Waltham, MA) in collaboration with Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, deputy director of the MS Program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Greenberg is also director of the new Transverse Myelitis and Neuromyelitis Optica Program at the university.
The proposed study would evaluate the potential effects of vitamin D supplementation when administered early in the course of the disease. It would also result in the banking of thousands of additional blood samples into the Accelerated Cure Project’s MS sample and data repository for future use in understanding the causes and disease mechanisms of MS.
The Accelerated Cure Project for MS has spent the past three years building the world’s largest shared multidisciplinary collection of biological samples and data from people with MS and other demyelinating diseases, as well as control subjects. In addition to supporting individual research efforts around the world with these samples, the Accelerated Cure Project is committed to orchestrating studies such as this one that it believes can “accelerate the cure by determining the cause.” For more information about the Accelerated Cure Project visit www.acceleratedcure.org.