Study finds consuming vitamin C increases efficacy of TB drugs

Representational PictureSuffering from tuberculosis Include bell peppers dark leafy greens berries and oranges in your diet Studies in mice and in tissue cultures suggest that giving vitamin C with tuberculosis drugs could reduce the unusually long time it takes these drugs to eradicate this pathogen In the study the investigators treated Mycobacterium tuberculosisinfected mice with antituberculosis drugs or vitamin C alone or the drugs and vitamin C together They measured M tuberculosis Mtb organ burdens at four and six weeks post treatmentVitamin C had no activity by itself but in two independent experiments the combination of vitamin C with the firstline TB drugs isoniazid and rifampicin reduced the organ burdens faster than the two drugs without vitamin C said first author Catherine J Vilcheze PhD Instructor Department of Microbiology amp Immunology Albert Einstein College of Medicine Bronx NY Experiments in infected tissue cultures demonstrated similar results shortening the time to sterilization of the tissue culture by seven daysOur study shows that the addition of vitamin C to TB drug treatment potentiates the killing of Mtb and could shorten TB chemotherapy said principal investigator William R Jacobs Jr PhD Investigator Howard Hughes Medical Institute Einstein College of Medicine Thats important because treatment of drug susceptible tuberculosis takes six months resulting in some treatment mismanagement potentially leading to the emergence and spread of drugresistant TB said Dr JacobsSuch long term treatment is needed for tuberculosis because a subpopulation of Mtb cells can form Mtb persister cells dormant cells that are virtually impervious to antimicrobials In earlier studies the investigators discovered that while high levels of vitamin C will kill actively dividing cells lower concentrations will stimulate respiration and prevent the formation of persisters said Dr Jacobs Then in the presence of TB drugs that increased respiration will lead to rapid death of the cells Thus in our new paper we postulate that vitamin C is stimulating respiration of the Mtb cells in mice thus enabling the action of isoniazid and rifampicinA French study conducted in 1948 suggested that vitamin C was safe for humans and potentially beneficial Investigators gave high daily doses of vitamin C to terminally ill patients with no side effects While the infection did not regress that study characterized other effects as remarkable bedridden patients regained appetite and physical activity Tuberculosis is a major worldwide public health problem infecting the lungs and other organ systems In 2016 the disease sickened more than 10 million people worldwide and killed 17 million In the United States cases number in the low thousands out of a population of around 330 million Treatment of multidrug resistant TB takes at least two years and requires use of toxic secondline TB drugs with severe side effectsVitamin C is known to be safe and our current mouse studies suggest that vitamin C could enhance TB chemotherapy said Dr Jacobs A clinical trial of vitamin C with TB chemotherapies could demonstrate that such an adjunct therapy could reduce patients exposure to toxic TB drugs and also reduce the spread of TB from infected individuals The research is published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy a journal of the American Society for MicrobiologyCatch up on all the latest Mumbai National and International news hereDownload the new midday Android and iOS apps to get updates on all the latest and trending stories on the go