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Dietary intake of vitamin D during adolescence and risk of multiple sclerosis

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Abstract

Adolescence may be an important etiological period in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), and studies suggest that adequate vitamin D nutrition is protective. Here, the authors examined whether dietary intake of vitamin D during adolescence decreases the risk of MS in adulthood. In 1986 in the Nurses’ Health Study and in 1998 in the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII), women completed a food frequency questionnaire regarding their dietary intake during adolescence. From this, daily intake of vitamin D was calculated. Adolescent diet was available for 379 incident MS cases confirmed over the combined 44 years of follow-up in both cohorts, and for 67 prevalent cases in the NHSII who had MS at baseline (1989). Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate relative risk estimates and 95% confidence intervals. Total vitamin D intake during adolescence was not associated with MS risk. Intake of ≥400 IU/day of vitamin D from multivitamins was associated with a non-statistically significant reduced risk (RR compared to no intake = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.50–1.07, P = 0.11), whereas intake of whole milk, an important source of dietary vitamin D, was associated with an increased risk. The possibility of opposite effects of vitamin D and milk intake on MS risk should be considered in future studies.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health (grant NS047467). We thank K. Claire Simon, ScD, and Leslie Unger for technical support. The authors have no financial conflicts of interest to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Ave, Bldg. 2, 3rd Fl., Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Kassandra L. Munger, Edward Giovannucci & Alberto Ascherio

  2. Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center, Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Tanuja Chitnis

  3. Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    A. Lindsay Frazier

  4. Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    A. Lindsay Frazier, Edward Giovannucci & Alberto Ascherio

  5. Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Edward Giovannucci, Donna Spiegelman & Alberto Ascherio

  6. Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Donna Spiegelman

Authors
  1. Kassandra L. Munger
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  2. Tanuja Chitnis
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  3. A. Lindsay Frazier
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  4. Edward Giovannucci
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  5. Donna Spiegelman
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  6. Alberto Ascherio
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Correspondence to Kassandra L. Munger.

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Munger, K.L., Chitnis, T., Frazier, A.L. et al. Dietary intake of vitamin D during adolescence and risk of multiple sclerosis. J Neurol 258, 479–485 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-010-5783-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-010-5783-1

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