Vitamin D can “dramatically” affect the immune system and could make people less susceptible to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, scientists have discovered.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh say their study has shed light on how vitamin D deficiency may influence the risk of autoimmune diseases.
The body produces vitamin D in response to sunlight and the scientists investigated how it affects a mechanism in the immune system – dendritic cells’ ability to activate T cells.
In healthy people, T cells play a crucial role in helping fight infection, but in people with autoimmune diseases, they can start to attack the body’s own tissues.
By studying cells from both mice and humans, researchers found vitamin D caused dendritic cells to produce more of a molecule called CD31 on their surface, and that this hindered the activation of T cells.
CD31 was seen to prevent the two cell types from making a stable contact – an essential part of the activation process – and the resulting immune reaction was far reduced.
Professor Richard Mellanby, of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Inflammation Research, said: “Low vitamin D status has long been implicated as a significant risk factor for the development of several autoimmune diseases.
“Our study reveals one way in which vitamin D metabolites can dramatically influence the immune system.”
The study, published in Frontiers of Immunology, was funded by the Medical Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Natural Environment Research Council and Wellcome.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here