It is estimated that around 2.79 million people are affected by Tuberculosis in India. Usually, TB therapy lasts for around six months with a high chance of recurrence. TB is therefore considered a serious threat which demands a quick and timely cure.

A new study by Jaya Sivaswami Tyagi and colleagues at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) from India had concluded that consuming Vitamin C along with regular tuberculosis medications could enhance the treatment accompanied by faster recovery.

It was concluded that Vitamin C modulated the physiology and metabolism of the TB pathogen by inducing dormancy, slowing down its growth and subjected it to multiple stress factors in order to boost the efficacy of TB drugs.

This is how, with the help of Vitamin C, the first line drug named pyrazinamide (PZA) killed the dormant tubercle bacteria, along with rifampicin and isoniazid in a combinational treatment.

“These initial findings are definitely very exciting and offer new hopes for developing more effective TB treatment approaches,” says Vikram Saini, Microbiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He further stated, ‘‘This research from AIIMS highlights an often ignored but an important fact that our diets can have substantial impact on the disease outcomes. This is a truly innovative study with massive translational value and should be evaluated in humans.’’