TB Patients May Benefit from Vitamin D

TB Patients May Benefit from Vitamin D

LONDON--The Feb. 19 edition of the British journal The Lancet published a studysuggesting that vitamin D may still play an important role in tuberculosis. In this study,vitamin D was found to enhance the ability of human monocytes to restrict the growth ofintracellular mycobacterium tuberculosis. This suggests that a component of vitamin Dstimulates immunity to this pathogen.

Researchers investigated 126 tuberculosis patients and 116 healthy tuberculosiscontacts (those who had been exposed to but didn't have TB). They found that 87 percent ofthe patients and 24 percent of the contacts had a vitamin D deficiency. Research methodswere not uniform, however, and these studies could not differentiate whether vitamin Ddeficiency is a risk factor for tuberculosis or if tuberculosis induced the vitamindeficiency.

The study concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend routine vitamin Dsupplements for tuberculosis contacts. A placebo-controlled trial may be next.