Use case: Is Low Vitamin D Levels Associated With Greater Risk of Relapse in Childhood Multiple Sclerosis?

We have known for some time that vitamin D insufficiency is a risk factor for developing Multiple Sclerosis and we would like to know whether vitamin D levels influence the disease course of those who already have Multiple Slcerosis and what are the scientific articles dealing with the subject. This use case nis inspired by an article seen on ScienceDaily.

1. We first search for Low Vitamin D in novoseek. There are 8,916results in Pubmed and 3,714results in Free Full Text up to date.

2. We are interested in low Vitamin D Levels so we click on “Vitamin d” from the “Pharmacologicl Substances” category in sidebar to add it to the current search and make it more specific. We now have 4,584 results in Pubmed up to date.

3. Now, we need to look up for Multiple Sclerosis disease-related articles. In order to do so, we will check if it appears in the diseases category in the left sidebar. We need to click on the “more” link to see all the diseases related to the current search. Multiple Sclerosis diseases does not show up so we have to think of another search strategy.
4. The other way of searching for “multiple sclerosis”. It consists of typing in the search box: low vitamin d and “multiple sclerosis”. Typing the term “multiple sclerosis” between brackets will tell the system to look only for these two terms when they are mentioned together. We press search and we now have 61 results in Pubmed.

Note: in order to make the search even more specific and relevant, we can click on the “multiple sclerosis” filter that now appears at the top of the related concepts list in the Diseases category.
5. Last search term to be added to the current search consists of adding “children”. This will help us consult solely articles related to humans. You can either add and children in the search box or look in the sidebar where the category Organisms appears and add Homo Sapiens (showing up in 4th position) to the search. We now have 34 results in pubmed. 
   

Those articles found in a few steps in Pubmed are satisfactory and help start working on knowing if Low Vitamin D Levels Associated With Greater Risk of Relapse in Childhood Multiple Sclerosis.

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