Prevent Multiple Sclerosis with Milk?

There may be a way for pregnant moms to reduce the risk of their newborn baby getting multiple sclerosis later in life. Find out how.
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Does multiple sclerosis prevention begin in the womb? According to a new study to be presented at the American Academy of Neurology meeting next month, what a mother drinks during pregnancy may affect an unborn baby’s multiple sclerosis risk as an adult – another example of how early exposures can affect a growing baby later on in life.
Multiple Sclerosis Risk: What is Multiple Sclerosis?
Multiple sclerosis is a progressive neurological disease where the body attacks its own myelin – the sheath that surrounds and protects nerve cells. It usually strikes younger people between the ages of twenty and forty and causes an array of disturbing and sometimes debilitating neurological symptoms such as numbness, weakness, visual disturbances, loss of balance. In some cases an individual with this disease end up confined to a wheelchair.
Does Milk Prevent Multiple Sclerosis?: What the Study Showed
In this study which involved 36,000 nurses, researchers looked at the eating habits of the nurse’s mothers when they were pregnant with them. A total of 199 nurses went on to develop multiple sclerosis over a sixteen year period. When the researchers looked at the eating habits of the mom’s of these women, they found that nurses whose mothers drank four glasses of milk per day during the time they were pregnant were 56 percent less likely to develop multiple sclerosis than those whose moms drank fewer than three glasses of milk a day.
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How Does Milk Prevent Multiple Sclerosis?
Why would drinking milk during pregnancy prevent multiple sclerosis in a growing fetus? Fortified milk is one of the few good food sources of vitamin D – a vitamin that’s associated with a lower risk of multiple sclerosis. Studies have shown that babies and children who are exposed to vitamin D early in life through sunlight and diet reduce their multiple sclerosis risk. This study takes it a step further and shows that multiple sclerosis prevention may start as early as in utero.
More Milk, Please.
The risk of multiple sclerosis is about one in 750 – with women being affected twice as often as men. There is a slight genetic predisposition to this disease, and when a person has a brother, sister, or parent with multiple sclerosis, the risk of multiple sclerosis can be as high as one in 100. Getting vitamin D from sunlight and from dietary sources such as fortified milk may be a safe and natural way to prevent multiple sclerosis in people at high risk for this disease. As this study suggests, the earlier the better.