New UBC study reveals benztropine’s potential to treat the world’s deadliest infectious disease and combat growing antibiotic resistance.
New UBC study reveals benztropine’s potential to treat the world’s deadliest infectious disease and combat growing antibiotic resistance.
A medication developed in the 1950s to treat Parkinson’s disease may offer a powerful new tool in the fight against tuberculosis (TB), according to new research from the University of British Columbia.
Published in npj Antimicrobials & Resistance, the study found that benztropine, a drug used to manage tremors in patients with Parkinson’s, can dramatically reduce levels of TB-causing bacteria by boosting the body’s natural immune response.
TB is the world’s deadliest infectious disease, typically affecting the lungs and causing an estimated 1.3 million deaths each year. Treatment requires a months-long regimen of multiple antibiotics, which can have serious side effects and is increasingly challenged by the emergence of drug-resistant bacterial strains.
Read More: University of British Columbia
