Speed Tuberculosis Recovery with Vitamin D?

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB (short for tubercle bacillus) is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis typically attacks the lungs, but can also affect other parts of the body. It is spread through the air when people who have an active TB infection cough, sneeze, or otherwise transmit their saliva through the air. Most infections are asymptomatic and latent, but about one in ten latent infections eventually progresses to active disease which, if left untreated, kills more than 50% of those so infected.

The classic symptoms of active TB infection are a chronic cough with fever, night sweats, and weight loss (the latter giving rise to the formerly prevalent term "consumption"). Infection of other organs causes a wide range of symptoms. Diagnosis of active TB relies on radiology (commonly chest X-rays), as well as microscopic examination and microbiological culture of body fluids.

High doses of vitamin D speed the recovery of tuberculosis patients, according to a new study.

The inspiration for testing the idea, scientist from Queen Mary University of London and other British hospitals said, was that 19th-century tuberculosis patients were sent to the mountains to lie in the sun. Ultraviolet B rays in sunshine convert cholesterol in the skin into vitamin D.

In the decades before antibiotics, doctors knew that TB patients sometimes recovered, or at least lived longer, at high altitudes. Spas for wealthy patients were built in the Alps, the Rockies and other mountain ranges.

Some doctors thought alpine air was the reason TB patients fared better, but others believed in “heliotherapy” (Medical therapy involving exposure to sunlight.) Even bed ridden patients were wheeled out onto sun decks.

Vitamin D seems to prevent lung damage by slowing down inflammatory responses to the TB bacterium. Since it does not interfere with the action of antibiotics, it may be useful in other illnesses, like pneumonia, according to the authors of the study, published online by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last week.

In a clinical trial of 95 patients on antibiotics, those who also got vitamin D had less inflammation, and the mycobacteria in their lung phlegm cleared up 13 days earlier on average.

Tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people a year and is a common co-infection in people with AIDS. Drug-resistant strains are becoming more common.

More information HERE at medicalnewstoday.com