Widespread vitamin D insufficiency: A new challenge for primary prevention, with particular reference to multiple sclerosis

Abstract

In the past 10 years, our knowledge of vitamin D has been revolutionized on two main points. Firstly, this vitamin is not only crucial for bone and calcium metabolism but also exerts major hormonal actions via its active metabolite (calcitriol) and specific receptors in almost all organs. The diverse non-classical actions of vitamin D-i.e. anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, antiproliferative and as a neurotransmitter-could have protective and preventive effects for a wide variety of pathologies, such as autoimmune diseases, cancer, infections and cardiovascular affections. Secondly, daily vitamin D requirements have been redefined thanks to many recent metabolic and pathological studies and are about 10 times higher than the amount considered sufficient until a few years ago. The fact that sunshine is the essential natural source of vitamin D and is limited in temperate and Nordic countries, coupled with the fact that modern lifestyle increasingly removes people from exposure to the sun, could explain why a great majority of the general population in these countries are in a state of vitamin D insufficiency. A lack of vitamin D can therefore also be observed in all pathologies but it may play a pathogenic role only in some of them. The incrimination of hypovitaminosis D as a risk factor is a reasonable assumption when several different research approaches used in a given pathology have consistently concluded that vitamin D is likely involved in that pathology. In multiple sclerosis, taken here as a prime example, there is a substantial rationale for vitamin D involvement, based on the findings of different experimental, epidemiological, genetic and immunological studies. Possible curative effects of vitamin D, in addition to a preventive action, are currently being tested but have not yet been demonstrated in most pathologies. However, these two questions appear to be clearly distinct and may involve notably different mechanisms. Lastly, since vitamin D insufficiency exists in most people living in mid- or high-latitude countries, vitamin D could exert multiple major preventive actions, simple supplementation is both safe and inexpensive and, for a vitamin-hormone, supplementation seems obligatory from a general preventive medical point of view alone, it follows that vitamin D supplementation should be organized in these countries to treat all those currently in a state of insufficiency, patients and 'normal' subjects alike, without further delay.