Vitamin D Along with Tuberculosis Medicine Works Better

A study conducted by the researchers from the University of London claims that high dose of Vitamin D in addition to antibiotic treatment helps to cure Tuberculosis and quick recovery.

The study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences throws light on a bygone process termed heliotherapy that was practised during the antibiotic era. Sunshine was used to treat tuberculosis, with patients often being sent to Swiss clinics to soak up the sun's healing rays.

Led by the researchers at the Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with the Medical Research is the first study to investigate on the effect of vitamin D on the immune responses of the patient receiving treatment.

The results of this study being carried in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences also states that high dose of vitamin D dampens the body's inflammatory reaction to infection and helps the patients to recover quickly thereby causing less damage to the lungs. Interestingly, vitamin D supplementation might help patients recover better from other ailments like pneumonia.

Dr Adrian Martineau, senior lecturer in respiratory infection and immunity at the Blizard Institute, part of Queen Mary, University of London, who led the research, said: "These findings are very significant. They indicate that vitamin D may have a role in accelerating resolution of inflammatory responses in tuberculosis patients. This is important, because sometimes these inflammatory responses can cause tissue damage leading to the development of cavities in the lung. If we can help these cavities to heal more quickly, then patients should be infectious for a shorter period of time, and they may also suffer less lung damage."

"More broadly, the ability of vitamin D to dampen down inflammatory responses without compromising the actions of antibiotics raises the possibility that supplementation might also have benefits in patients receiving antimicrobial therapy for pneumonia, sepsis and other lung infections."

For the study the researchers randomised 95 TB patients receiving standard antibiotic treatment into two groups. For the first eight weeks of the treatment, they gave high dose of vitamin D to 44 patients and the remaining 51 received a placebo.

The level of inflammatory markers in blood samples taken from these patients was measured by Dr. Anna Coussens at the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research. She also had a statistical analyses done to determine the effects that vitamin D had on the immune response.

"We found that a large number of these inflammatory markers fell further and faster in patients receiving vitamin D," said Coussens.

It was also noticed that the bacterium that causes TB named Mycobacterium tuberculosis is being wiped from the patients sputum when they consumed a high dose of Vitamin D.

Martineau said it was probably too early to be recommending that all TB patients should take high-dose vitamin D in addition to the standard antibiotic treatment for the disease; more research with more patients was needed before clinical recommendations could be made. "We are hoping to do more work to evaluate the effects of higher doses and different forms of vitamin D to see if they have a more dramatic effect," he said.