A specialist in the treatment of multiple sclerosis has backed a campaign by The Times to highlight the correlation between low vitamin D and ill health in Scotland.

Dr Tom Gilhooley, a GP, says that his diagnostic blood test could offer a breakthrough for progressive MS sufferers who do not always know when their illness is in an active phase.

Scotland has the highest proportional incidence of MS anywhere in the world, with 10,500 sufferers.

Dr Gilhooley said: “Vitamin D is of terrific importance. One of the reasons we have double the rate of MS to other countries is because of our latitude and our number of gloomy days.” Vitamin D is manufactured by the body in response to the skin's exposure to sunlight.

“I read The Times articles on vitamin D with delight. We monitor vitamin D in everyone who comes to the clinic. Almost every MS patient we see has got low vitamin D levels,” he added.

At present most people with the more common form of MS do not take treatment and often the symptoms of the disease are clinically less obvious.

People with the progressive form of MS could predict when their illness is about to flare up, through the use of Dr Gilhooley's blood test.

Dr Gilhooley said it was early days for the test, which he calls the Tyscore Assay, but said that he was very hopeful.

“This has the potential to unlock treatment for this group of patients and reduce the uncertainty of the disease, which is often the most difficult aspect for patients to deal with.”

Dr Gilhooley's organisation, Glasgow Health Solutions, is a private nutritional clinic that concentrates on MS. He said he had always believed nutritional balance, rather than pharmaceutical drugs, should be used as a first stage of treatment.

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