Vitamin B1 helps to treat hepatitis

        Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is transmitted by contact with the blood or body fluid of the patient. HBV infection of the liver, severe cases can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and liver failure. HBV can be treated with antiviral drugs and interferon, but there is no cure.

        Associate professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth medical school, Dr. AmyElizabethWallace has observed a hepatitis B patients with transaminase level according to whether taking the vitamin and increase and decrease, so she decided to study the effect of thiamin on HBV. High levels of aminotransferase showed increased viral activity in infected liver. Wallace after studying the clinical data sheet, found that patients taking after taking the level of ammonia aminotransferase levels decreased.

        Wallace and colleagues, Dr. WilliamBrinsonWeeks, conducted a trial of the patient and another two HBV infected patients to study the above correlation. All three patients treated with interferon did not respond to or could not tolerate drugs.

        Wallace and Weeks reported in the March issue of the TheAmericanJournalofGastroenterology report: "during the period of the treatment of patients with ammonia, their aminotransferase levels were reduced to normal levels. And after the termination of the sulfur ammonia treatment, their level of aminotransferase increased." Liver biopsies were performed after the treatment with HBV, and no DNA was found in the liver.

This is the first study of the role of sulfur ammonia in the treatment of hepatitis B. Wallace says there may be several ways to combat HBV infection.

        For example, it can bind ions, and therefore reduce the levels of ions in the liver. Past studies have found a correlation between high levels of the liver and more severe HBV infection, as well as a worse effect of interferon treatment.

        "It is quite cheap," Wallace said. "The price is lower than any of the hepatitis B drugs currently on the market." In addition, she also pointed out that there is no side effects of this vitamin.

However, Dr. RaymondS.Koff, a professor at the Massachusetts School of medicine, told reporters in the Reuters that, in order to prove that it is beneficial for patients with hepatitis B, it is clear that more research is needed.

        "One of the main limitations of this study is that the patient sample is too small to study," he said. And a lack of data on the level of the patient before treatment, after the. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the role of sulfur ammonia in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B, need to have not previously received interferon therapy, or a randomized controlled trial of patients who do not respond to interferon."