A new study showed that mice reacted positively against the threat of a bacterial infection that causes pneumonia after they had been given extra vitamin E, which could point towards a potential treatment for the respiratory disease.
After the age of 65, older adults are at a higher risk of getting pneumonia, an illness that basically consists in the inflammation of the lungs due to an infection. In this age group, most of the times the infection reaches them is due to a bacteria called Streptococcus pneumonia, due to the fact that the immune system of older adults becomes more vulnerable to infections, particularly in the lungs.
According to Science Daily, the new study was published in the latest issue of The Journal of Immunology, entitled "The α-Tocopherol Form of Vitamin E Reverses Age-Associated Susceptibility to Streptococcus pneumoniae Lung Infection by Modulating Pulmonary Neutrophil Recruitment" and created by researchers from Tufts University in Massachusetts.
For their investigation, the researchers studied male mice of an older age, before and after infecting them with the Streptococcus pneumonia bacteria; for the purposes of the research, the scientists fed the mice with different levels of vitamin E (particularly alpha-tocopherol) over four weeks, before the mice actually acquired the infection.
The mice were separated into two groups for the study: a control group that only consumed the usual amounts of vitamin E, and an experimental group that was fed a much larger amount of vitamin E.
To see how the mice's health evolved, researchers examined their lungs and checked for damage, ultimately finding 1,000 times fewer bacteria and twice fewer white blood cells.
According to Zee News, Streptococcus pneumonia causes around 1.2 million drug-resistant infections, more than 19,000 hospitalizations, 7,000 deaths and around $96 million in excessive medical costs every year, with the most at-risk populations being young children and older adults.
