Effects of B Vitamins in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease caused by the immune system attacking and demyelinating axons in the brain. In recent years there has been some hypotheses regarding the effect of B vitamin deficiency on multiple sclerosis. There is thought to be a clear distinction between the inflammatory neuropathology of multiple sclerosis and the noninflammatory neuropathology of B vitamin deficiency. Mouse models have shown that vitamin B1 and vitamin B9 deficiency can cause slight neurological degradation, whereas there are no clear results regarding vitamins B6 and B12, even though they are known to be key vitamins used in the brain. Vitamin B12, the most clinically examined B vitamin with regard to multiple sclerosis seem to only slightly benefit patients with multiple sclerosis. Deficiency of vitamin B12 can impede the immunological process, which may explain why it is likely that vitamin B12 is necessary for myelin formation and stability. Although there is no causal link between multiple sclerosis and vitamin B12 deficiency currently, the overlap and correlations are significant enough to warrant more research.