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Vitamin D can help get rid of tuberculosis faster
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Large doses of vitamin D help tuberculosis patients recover faster. This is the conclusion reached by British scientists. The results of their work will be published this week in the periodical Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
For decades, before antibiotics became a widely available treatment for tuberculosis, sunlight helped fight the disease. So patients were often advised to go to sanatoriums, where the sunlight killed the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria.
In addition, sunlight provides the body with vitamin D, which is very important for strengthening the resistance of innate immunity to microbial infection.
A team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London and the National Institute for Medical Research have found that high doses of vitamin D, as an adjunct to antibiotic therapy, can help patients recover from illness.
Sunlight, which provides the body with vitamin D, is very important for protecting the body from fungal bacterial infections. Moreover, the sun's rays can act on skin lesions, which are common symptoms in tuberculosis patients, beneficially, accelerating their healing.
"These results are extremely important for preventive and therapeutic procedures. The use of vitamin D plays an important role in the reparation of lung tissue, as well as in the process of reducing the period of bacterial excretion. Its action does not interfere with the action of antibiotics. And this gives hope for the possibility of its use in the treatment of other patients receiving antibacterial therapy for severe infections - sepsis and pneumonia, as well as other similar diseases," says Dr. Adrian Martino from the Department of Respiratory Infections and Immunity at the Blizard Institute.
The scientists' experiment involved 95 tuberculosis patients from several London clinics.
They were divided into two groups, one of which was given additional vitamin D in high doses, while the second group received a placebo.
Based on the results of studying the presence of the causative bacteria in the sputum of patients, it was revealed by microscopy that in the group of patients receiving vitamin D, the bacteria disappeared from the sputum of patients in 23 days, while in the group taking placebo - in 36 days.
According to scientists, it is too early to speak unequivocally about the need to add high doses of vitamin D to the treatment of tuberculosis patients. However, the effect of its use in studies is beyond doubt.