We often write about – and emphasize in our own practice’s recommendations - the importance of maintaining a healthy diet and the impact on disease progression. Now, new studies point to how specific foods as well as nutritional approaches can make a difference in patient outcomes.

In a recent study, researchers reported on their investigation that focused on “the relative contribution of relapses to disability worsening over the course of the disease, how early progression begins, and the extent to which multiple sclerosis therapies delay disability accumulation.” Disability accumulation refers to the degree of disability that occurs and builds up over the course of the disease.

We know you’ve read it here before, but as more evidence continues to come to light, we cannot emphasize enough the need to maintain adequate levels of vitamin D, particularly in patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Now, scientists have shown that “low vitamin D levels in the bloodstream are associated with slower information processing speeds in people with early-stage disease.”1 And while cognitive impairment was thought to appear only in the progressive types of MS, more recent findings indicate that this actually may occur across all stages of MS.