Thursday, October 18, 2012

Vitamin B12 promising for Hepatitis C, study finds

Vitamin B12 has been always been a component to achieving overall optimal health, and it’s also useful in supporting cell maintenance.  Adding vitamin B12 to your daily diet has significant benefits; however, it has also now been found that vitamin B12 may be a major component in the treatment of Hepatitis C Virus, according to new, promising research.

Professor Gerardo Nardone from the Department of Clinical and Experiment Medicine at the University of Naples, along with his team of seven researchers, recently conducted a study to provide proof that the B12 vitamin can greatly help treat those infected with Hepatitis C. The study followed 94 Hepatitis C sufferers at random, with some receiving standardized treatment and others receiving the same treatment with the addition of vitamin B12 supplementation.

Nardone and his team discovered that, after 12 weeks of the treatment, those with the added vitamin B12 supplementation had “significant” improvements. These same groups, 24 weeks after stopping treatment, were still seeing the advantageous effects of the B12 vitamin:
Overall, adding vitamin B12 to standard therapy strengthened the rate of sustained viral response by 34%, the findings showed.
Vitamin B12 has many benefits, such as reducing stress and depression, increasing energy and protecting against certain types of cancer. It also helps to maintain a healthy digestive system. The study conducted by Professor Nardone and his team just point out one more benefit of this nutrient.