Accidental find shows Vitamin C kills TB
Source: AFP |
May 22, 2013, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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SCIENTISTS said yesterday they had managed to kill lab-grown tuberculosis (TB) bacteria with good old Vitamin C - an "unexpected" discovery they hope will lead to better, cheaper drugs.
A team from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York made the accidental find while researching how TB bacteria become resistant to the TB drug isoniazid.
The researchers added isoniazid and a "reducing agent" known as cysteine to the TB in a test tube, expecting the bacteria to develop drug resistance.
Instead, the team "ended up killing off the culture," according to the study's senior author William Jacobs, who said the result was totally unexpected.
Reducing agents chemically reduce other substances.
The team then replaced the cysteine in the experiment with another reducing agent - Vitamin C.
It, too, killed the bacteria.
"I was in disbelief," said Jacobs of the outcome.
"Even more surprisingly when we left out the TB drug isoniazid and just had Vitamin C alone, we discovered that Vitamin C kills tuberculosis," he said.
The team next tested the vitamin on drug resistant strains of TB, with the same outcome.
In the lab tests, the bacteria never developed resistance to Vitamin C - "almost like the dream drug," Jacobs said.
He stressed the effect had only been demonstrated in a test tube so far, and "we don't know if it will work in humans," or which dose might be useful.
The authors of the new study urged further research into the potential uses of Vitamin C in TB treatment, stressing it was "inexpensive, widely available and very safe to use."
A team from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York made the accidental find while researching how TB bacteria become resistant to the TB drug isoniazid.
The researchers added isoniazid and a "reducing agent" known as cysteine to the TB in a test tube, expecting the bacteria to develop drug resistance.
Instead, the team "ended up killing off the culture," according to the study's senior author William Jacobs, who said the result was totally unexpected.
Reducing agents chemically reduce other substances.
The team then replaced the cysteine in the experiment with another reducing agent - Vitamin C.
It, too, killed the bacteria.
"I was in disbelief," said Jacobs of the outcome.
"Even more surprisingly when we left out the TB drug isoniazid and just had Vitamin C alone, we discovered that Vitamin C kills tuberculosis," he said.
The team next tested the vitamin on drug resistant strains of TB, with the same outcome.
In the lab tests, the bacteria never developed resistance to Vitamin C - "almost like the dream drug," Jacobs said.
He stressed the effect had only been demonstrated in a test tube so far, and "we don't know if it will work in humans," or which dose might be useful.
The authors of the new study urged further research into the potential uses of Vitamin C in TB treatment, stressing it was "inexpensive, widely available and very safe to use."
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