A UK and Canadian team of researchers have managed to put forward evidence of a link between vitamin D deficiency and increased risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), revealing that vitamin D helps control a gene known to increase MS risk, according to a report in the PLoS Genetics journal.

Furthermore, the report reads that vitamin D supplements taken during pregnancy and early life might prevent the development of the disease.

Currently, in the United Kingdom, the estimated number of people suffering from MS amounts to 85,000.

Even though for the time being, the cause for multiple sclerosis has not entirely been found, previous research has suggested that vitamin D, which is produced in the body through exposure to sunlight, has a role.

MS is the aftermath of the loss of nerve fibres and the myelin layer that protects them in the brain and spinal cord, which leads to neurological damage.

For the study, researchers at the University of Oxford and University of British Columbia investigated a section of the genome on chromosome six, which has been previously found to have the most powerful impact on the risk of developing MS.

Presently, one in 1,000 people in the UK is prone to come to suffer from multiple sclerosis, still the percentage increases to one in 300, where people carrying a single copy of the gene variant known as DRB1*1501 are concerned, while among those carrying two copies, the number rises to one in 100 people.

Researchers discovered that the proteins that vitamin D activates in the body connect with a a particular DNA sequence located next to the above-mentioned gene, which hinders its function.