American scientists have found that vitamin C can help fight even the drug-resistant bacteria that cause tuberculosis, reports the journal Nature Communications.
Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University were surprised when, while experimenting with different strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, they accidentally discovered that vitamin C was able to kill a whole culture of dangerous Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria in the laboratory, even when they showed resistance to other drugs.
Scientists conducted research on Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistant to Isoniazid – a popular first-line anti-tuberculosis drug. They suspected that the resistant bacteria had a small amount of mycotiol (one of the organic compounds).
We assumed that tuberculosis bacilli that could not produce mycotiol had more cysteine, an amino acid. We anticipated that if we add isoniazid and cysteine to an isoniazid-sensitive bacterial culture, these bacteria would develop immunity. Instead, an entire culture was wiped out, which we did not expect at all, says Dr William Jacobs, one of the researchers.
Scientists began to suspect that cysteine was helping to kill bacteria because it acted as a reducing agent and thus aided the production of free radicals that damaged the organism’s DNA.
To confirm the correctness of their hypothesis, the researchers used isoniazid and vitamin C in another experiment, which is also considered a reducing agent in chemical reactions.
It turned out that this combination (causing the Fenton reaction) was able to kill not only isoniazid-sensitive strains of bacteria, but also those resistant to drugs.
We do not know if vitamin C will be effective in treating humans, but now we have a reasonable basis for doing clinical trials. In addition, we realize that vitamin C is an inexpensive, readily available and safe supplement, concludes Dr. Jacobs. (PAP)
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