Legendary gunfighter, Doc Holliday, of the American Old West spent the last years of his life fighting TB. He spent long hours on the sunny veranda of a TB sanitarium in the high Colorado mountains.

He sat and soaked up what his caregivers considered the healing rays of the sun. Before the discovery of antibiotics, sunshine was often the drug of choice for TB treatment.

At last researchers have agreed that “heliotherapy” might have lengthened the lifetime of TB Sufferers. At last, we know why:

A recent study led by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, and the Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research, reveals that high doses of vitamin D, given with antibiotic treatment, help patients with tuberculosis (TB) recover more quickly.

How Vitamin D Works:

1. The study revealed that high doses of the vitamin dampens our body’s inflammatory response to infection.
2. This effect allows patients to recover faster, and, amazingly, with less damage to their lungs.
3. TB is not the only disease Vitamin D helps. Pneumonia, sepsis and other lung disease patients also seem to respond to Vitamin D.

Dr Adrian Martineau, senior lecturer in respiratory infection and immunity at the Blizard Institute, part of Queen Mary, University of London, who led the research, said: “These findings are very significant. They indicate that vitamin D may have a role in accelerating resolution of inflammatory responses in tuberculosis patients. This is important, because sometimes these inflammatory responses can cause tissue damage leading to the development of cavities in the lungs.”

It was his premise that helping heal the cavities more quickly would result in a shorter time for the infectious condition.

How They Tested the Vitamin D:

To read about the details of the microbiological method they used to make their discoveries, click here.

The Vitamin D Bonus:

The scientists also discovered that that Mycobacterium tuberculosis was cleared from the patients’ sputum significantly faster in patients who took the vitamin D, during the study.

The solution was not in what you could see, but in what you could not see. The bacterium took “about 23 days to become undetectable under the microscope compared, to 36 days in the patients who were taking the placebo.”

The Bigger Picture:

Dr Martineau said it was probably too early that prescribe take high-dose vitamin D for all TB patients. More research with more patients will be initiated before across-the-board recommendations are made.

“We are hoping to do more work to evaluate the effects of higher doses and different forms of vitamin D to see if they have a more dramatic effect,” he added.

Much to his regret, Doc Holliday died of TB “with his boots off,”  in his little bed at the Sanitarium,but one thing is sure: He lived longer and stronger, because of his sun baths of Vitamin D. (Of course, our methods of delivering high dose Vitamin D will be undoubtedly more measurable than a sun bath allows.)

In this time of great technological advances, it is somehow comforting to know that there is some scientific backing for some of the old cures from by-gone eras. Even in medical research, the past is often the key to the future.