Research Details How to Boost Body’s Own Tuberculosis Defense

Stockholm (PNA/Xinhua) — A combination of ordinary drugs can help the human immune system fight diseases such as tuberculosis, Swedish research published Wednesday showed.

A drug that has been used to fight metabolic diseases in children has been shown to aid a bodily process that kills disease bacteria, researchers at Karolinska Institutet said in a statement.

“We have focused particularly on increasing the body’s production of the body’s own peptides with the help of existing drugs,” said Birgitta Agerberth, one of the researchers who led the study.

The drug, phenylbutyrate, increases the production of peptides that make up the “body’s own antibiotics,” the researchers said.

Their study, published on Wednesday in the journal Autophagy, showed that vitamin D and phenylbutyrate can be combined to trigger a bodily process that kills tuberculosis bacteria.

The same research group has also shown that a combination of those drugs and antibiotics had positive results when treating tuberculosis patients in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

“The results suggest a new treatment principle for infectious diseases that can strengthen the effect of traditional antibiotic treatments and reduce the risk of developing a resistance,” the researchers said.

Tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that typically affects the lungs, is one of the world’s most infectious mortal diseases but can often be treated after six months of taking antiobiotics, according to the World Health Organization. (PNA/Xinhua) JBP/EBP