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| Kills Tuberculosis |
A new research
at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of
Yeshiva University found that vitamin C kills drug-resistant tuberculosis.
A formula that Cysteine
+ Isoniazid à kills TB
Dr. Jacobs. Said, "We don't
know whether vitamin C will work in humans, but we now have a rational basis for
doing a clinical trial,"
Researchers suspected
that cysteine was helping to kill TB bacteria by acting as a "reducing
agent" that triggers the production of reactive oxygen species, which can
damage DNA.
Vitamin C induced
what is known as a Fenton reaction, causing iron to react with other molecules
to create reactive oxygen species that kill the TB bacteria.
Disease experts warned a "very
real" risk of an untreatable TB strain emerging as more and more people
develop drug resistance.
Vitamin C will work in humans, but we
now have a rational basis for doing a clinical trial.
Vitamin C is very low
cost, widely available and very safe to use. At the very least, this work shows
us a new mechanism that we can exploit to attack TB
Reducing agents
chemically reduce other substances. The team then replaced
the cysteine in the experiment with another reducing agent -- Vitamin C, which killed
the bacteria.