summary: MS is an inflammatory-demyelinating disease of the central nervous system of autoimmune origin. It is also considered a degenerative disease, because after onset, slow but continuous demyelinating changes, amongst other pathological changes, occur in the brain and the spinal cord. Though the ideal treatment would be to stop the demyelinating process and regenerate the damaged tissue, the currently available treatments only slow down this process. Some “antioxidant” vitamins such as vitamin D have the ability to ameliorate clinical symptoms in animal models of MS. Others such as vitamin E can prevent the neural tissue from being damaged as a result of different oxidative processes, known to be present in degenerative diseases including MS. The authors aimed to investigate the ability of vitamins D and E to regenerate the myelin content of the central nervous system in an animal model of MS, the rat. After provoking a demyelinating stimulus in the brain of the rat (artificial brain damage), they divided the rats into three groups and injected them with vitamin D, vitamin E or a placebo. They compared the groups and found that the groups which had received vitamin D or vitamin E for at least four weeks after the demyelinating brain damage, had significantly lower level of demyelination and higher level of remyelination (restoration of myelin content) in the brain than the rats that received the placebo. Though further studies with humans are needed to understand better the role of these vitamins in MS, this study supports their suggested beneficial effects and sheds light on the pathogenesis of the disease.

authors: Goudarzvand M, Javan M, Mirnajafi-Zadeh J, Mozafari S, Tiraihi T

source: Cell Mol Neurobiol. 2009 Sep 19

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