Heavy metals boost immunity
Date: 23.9.2011
A new natural defense mechanism against infections has been evidenced by an international team, a heavy metal that is toxic at high doses, is used by the cells of the immune system to destroy microbes such as the tuberculosis bacillus or E. coli. Published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, this discovery makes it possible to envisage new therapeutic strategies and test new vaccine candidates.
This phenomenon has been demonstrated for Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the agent responsible for tuberculosis in humans, which accounts for nearly 2 million deaths worldwide each year, and for Escherichia coli, of which certain strains can cause serious infections of the digestive and urinary systems.
