Genetics

This post covers Bhargava and colleagues' 2017 JCI Insight study, which profiled the plasma metabolome in relapsing-remitting MS patients and controls, then gave both groups 5,000 IU of vitamin D daily for 90 days. It reports the gamma-glutamyl and oxidative stress module separating patients from controls, distinguishes it from a second module of dietary and microbial metabolites the study could not control for, and centres on the main result: markers of oxidative stress fell in controls after supplementation but not in patients, an effect that survives adjustment for how much their vitamin D levels actually rose. It closes on the missing untreated arm, measurement reliability, and how narrow both cohorts were.