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Vitamin D accelerates the elimination of tuberculosis & nbsp | & nbspPhoto: & nbspGetty Images
Washington DC: New study reveals that vitamin D accelerates the elimination of tuberculosis (TB) bacteria from the lungs of people with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. The study was led by Queen Mary University in London and published in the European Respiratory Journal. Speaking of the study, Professor Adrian Martineau, principal investigator, said, "MDR-TB is increasing worldwide, it is notoriously difficult to treat, and its prognosis is much worse than that of a patient. standard tuberculosis. "
"Our study raises the possibility that vitamin D – which is very safe and inexpensive – can benefit this group of difficult-to-treat patients by taking a new approach to their treatment." By adding vitamin D to antibiotic treatment, we can strengthen the immune system system to help the body eliminate bacteria from TB, rather than rely on antibiotics to kill bacteria directly, "added Martineau.
He added that this was a new approach because it contrasted with the conventional tactic of developing new antibiotics to track the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria – an arms race that was hard to beat. The World Health Organization estimates that 10 million people have developed active TB in 2017 and that 1.6 million people have died from the disease.
Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR) is caused by a bacterium that is resistant to treatment with at least two of the most potent first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs, causing about 5,000,000 cases and 1,50,000 deaths a year worldwide. Existing antibiotic treatments for MDR-TB are long, expensive and often toxic because of their serious side effects. Vitamin D may strengthen the immune system, but randomized controlled trials of vitamin D in the treatment of tuberculosis have yielded contradictory results.
In the new study published in the European Respiratory Journal, the research team collected data from 1,850 tuberculosis patients who participated in vitamin D clinical trials in eight countries (United Kingdom, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia , Mongolia, Republic of Georgia and United States). Guinea Bissau). They then conducted an badysis to determine if there were particular groups of patients who responded better to vitamin D than others.
When antibiotic therapy was added, vitamin D was found to accelerate the clearance of TB, particularly in patients with MDR-TB, although no acceleration of TB clearance was observed. observed when examining the entire population studied. Vitamin D supplementation was also safe at the doses administered, unrelated to serious adverse events.
The researchers explain that these results illustrate the potential of "host-directed therapies", treatments that strengthen the immune system, to improve outcomes in patients with drug-resistant bacterial infection. The researchers warned that the badysis alone is not enough to warrant a clinical recommendation for the use of vitamin D in the treatment of MDR-TB because it relies on a relatively small number of participants. However, in their view, these results warrant further clinical trials to determine whether vitamin D can actually benefit patients taking standard antibiotics for the treatment of multidrug-resistant TB.
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