Loryn Green
September 7,
2012
Sunshine vitamin 'may help treat tuberculosis'
By James
Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News
Updated September
3, 2012
According to doctors in London
certain doses of Vitamin D could help the body fight the infectious disease, tuberculosis. There has been rising numbers of people being
killed by Tuberculosis each and every year, some of the cases so sever to the
point where they are becoming untreatable.
Studies have been done and proved that given patients both vitamin D and
antibiotics will clear the disease quicker.
This particular treatment is similar to the sunbathing treatment called
heliotherapy that patients were prescribed to do some time ago, which would
increase Vitamin D in the body. However the
Heliotherapy treatment went away when antibiotics were discovered and were
proved to have a quicker recovery time. The
study was done using 95 subjects, all conducted in hospitals across the London
area. The study showed that the recovery
time using both the Vitamin D and antibiotics was about two weeks faster. Patients that used both vitamin D and the antibiotics
were cleared of the infection in 23 days compared to the 36 days it took
patients that were given antibiotics and a dummy sugar pill. Its looks pretty promising says doctors but
more trials, testing and stronger evidence is needed in order to pinpoint the
exact dosage of each to ensure proper results.
Doctors say that this new treatment could possible help cure other lung
diseases such as pneumonia and sepsis. Drug
resistant TB is another major issue we are faced with across the world says
Professor Allison Grant, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine. SO any other new treatments
that are found would be very welcomed into the medical community. Of course there is still a lot of testing that
needs to be done to insure that the high doses of Vitamin D do not have
negative effects on the body.
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