Vitamin D improves immune response to tuberculosis, study finds

Medical Xpress / University of Copenhagen / Frontiers in Immunology ^ | Jan. 9, 2023 | Fatima A. H. Al-Jaberi et al

[ConservativeMind]

It is estimated that 2 billion people globally suffer from the disease today.

But vitamin D can help the immune system fight tuberculosis, a new study concludes.

"We have shown that vitamin D improves the immune system's ability to fight the tuberculosis bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis," says Associate Professor Martin Kongsbak-Wismann.

Today, tuberculosis is treated with antibiotics, but in the past, many tuberculosis patients were admitted to sanatoriums and made to lie out in the sun. This caused their vitamin D levels to rise. Therefore, researchers have long suspected that vitamin D can help fight tuberculosis.

The study showed that the female patient produced very few cathelicidins, which is a natural toxin found in the immune cells of the lungs needed to fight tuberculosis. In most people infected by tuberculosis, tuberculosis bacteria attack the immune cells of the lungs.

The immune cells fight the bacteria by eating them. But the tuberculosis bacterium has developed various evasive mechanisms that reduce the immune cells' ability to digest and thus to kill Mtb.

This is where vitamin D enters the picture. Because vitamin D is able to counteract the soporific effect of the tuberculosis bacteria by making the immune cells produce more of the cathelicidin toxin.

"Cathelicidin is like a microscopic needle that is able to pierce the tuberculosis bacteria. And when it does, it weakens the bacteria's soporific effect on the immune cells. This restores the immune cells' ability to kill tuberculosis bacteria," says Martin Kongsbak-Wismann.

"We were amazed by the effect of vitamin D. In immune cells from healthy control subjects, vitamin D improved the cells' ability to fight Mtb, whereas in the female patient's immune cells we saw no response to vitamin D. This shows that vitamin D is key to the immune system's ability to fight Mtb and prevent tuberculosis."

[ConservativeMind]

Vitamin D won’t eliminate tuberculosis, but it helps minimize it.

[ConservativeMind]

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[politicket]

Got my blood results yesterday. Vitamin D at a little of 95...used to be 14 a couple of years ago...

[Sunsong]

you can get Vitamin D from the sun. Take a walk, grow a garden etc

[Magic Fingers]

You can, although how much is absorbed depends on the time of year, your age, how much skin is exposed, how often, etc.

[Blennos]

Excellent vitamin D report. Well done.