Study: Vitamin C, Cysteine Kill TB

Does citrus kill TB too?
Photo Credit

Here's some more good news about vitamin C: it appears to be very good at killing tuberculosis! Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York made an "accidental" discovery while studying TB drug resistance. They found that both the amino acid cysteine and vitamin C -- both reducing agents -- directly killed TB bacteria in a test tube.

Here's the best part: tuberculosis doesn't appear to develop resistance to vitamin C the way it does to nearly all other drugs. Researchers said it is "almost like a dream drug" in a video released by the college.

Obviously killing TB in test tubes and killing it inside the human body are two very different things. But experts say the new findings will definitely lead to more research in the use of vitamin C, cysteine, and other nutrient chemicals in the future. New forms of multi-drug resistance (MDR) TB are becoming a major threat to global health so there's a strong hope that vitamin C will provide a new therapy in the battle.

We say: It will be very interesting to see if any significant TB treatment research is actually done on vitamin C, cysteine, or any other cheap vitamin that can't be patented by the large pharmaceutical companies!

Learn some mo':  Accidental find shows Vitamin C kills tuberculosis

Video: