Vitamin C makes tuberculosis drugs work better, researchers discover

by: | June 12, 2018
Vitamin C makes tuberculosis drugs work better, researchers discover
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(NaturalHealth365) Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY researchers have discovered that there is a dramatic acceleration in the effectiveness of tuberculosis (TB) drugs when they are taken with vitamin C. This finding adds to the already long list of vitamin C benefits to overall health.

Tuberculosis drugs are known for taking a very long time to eradicate the pathogen behind the disease – at least six months, and in some cases years. The addition of vitamin C to the tuberculosis treatment protocol could cut the treatment time down by years in some cases.

Vitamin C seems to potentiate tuberculosis drugs in a positive way

The studies were conducted with both live mice and human tissue cultures. For part of the research, mice afflicted with tuberculosis were treated with either vitamin C, tuberculosis drugs, or a combination of both. The mice were tested for tuberculosis at four and six weeks following treatment.

The vitamin C registered no effectiveness on its own, but two independent experiments showed first-line TB drugs irifampicin and isoniazid in combination of vitamin C reduced levels of TB faster than the drugs taken without vitamin C.

Research with tuberculosis infected tissue cultures showed similar results, reducing the healing time by seven days. In a nutshell: vitamin C added to standard TB drug treatments seems to potentiate their effectiveness.

Researchers believe this approach could also shorten TB therapy. The results were published in the American Society for Microbiology’s Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy journal.

Tuberculosis killed 1.7 million people worldwide in 2016

Treating tuberculosis with drugs normally takes six months or more. This is because a subpopulation of tuberculosis cells can linger, and these dormant cells are impervious to antimicrobial treatments.

Treatment of multidrug resistant TB can take as long as two years, and the drugs can have severe side effects.

Past studies showed that that while high vitamin C levels can kill actively dividing cells, lower amounts of vitamin C were less effective. Vitamin C along with TB drugs led to a rapid death of TB cells.

No doubt, tuberculosis is a major health problem – worldwide. In 2016 alone, it killed 1.7 million people and sickened over 10 million. It commonly affects the lungs, but it can also infect other organs.

Are you taking advantage of vitamin C benefits?

The fact such a safe and affordable vitamin could help to reduce both treatment time and TB drug side effects is very exciting. We’re starting to wonder if there’s anything that vitamin C can’t do, with the list of vitamin C benefits growing all the time!

Public awareness (and pressure) is the key to reveal the truth about vitamin C. The mainstream media will only report on ‘profitable’ health issues – like, the value of pharmaceutical drugs for the treatment of disease. But, as people become more and more disinterested in failed conventional treatment options, news outlets will have no choice but to report on the success of natural substances like, vitamin C.

While the current U.S. Food and Drug Administration daily recommendations for vitamin C supplementation is 75 mg for women and 90 mg for men, research has shown that more vitamin C benefits occur with much larger doses.

Simply taking 500 to 1,000 mg per day can help to overcome cold and flu symptoms. But, much higher doses of vitamin C (10,000 mg per day or more) have been used safely to battle severe infections and even cancerous conditions.

Sources for this article include:

Eurekalert.org
Einstein.yu.edu
NaturalHealth365.com
NaturalHealth365.com

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