An invitro study of synergetic effect of Vitamin C on antimicrobial activity of antibiotics against isolated from respiratory samples

Abstract

Vitamins are essential for various biological responses such as immune function and gene expression in humans. The infections of respiratory tract with is quite common throughout the world. Vitamin C supplements reduces the duration and symptoms of the respiratory infections shown by few therapeutic trials. This study was undertaken to find out whether Vitamin C has got any effect upon the sensitivity pattern of antibacterial prescribed for isolated from respiratory samples using disc diffusion method in vitro. In our study, by using student T test analysis, Vitamin C significantly decreased the inhibition zone of antibiotics Ciprofloxacin (40%), Imipenem (72%) indicating a decrease in their antibacterial effect invitro. Also, Vitamin C enhanced the antibacterial effect of Doxycycline (64%) and Ceftazidime-Clavulanic acid (36%) significantly. Significant decrease in zone diameter was observed on addition of Vitamin C to antibiotics, Imipenem (56%), Ciprofloxacin (40%). It is to be noted that effect of Vitamin C on Ceftazidime-Clavulanic acid is both increase and decrease in zone diameter which were also statistically significant. This might be due to small sample size of isolates (Number – 50) undertaken in the study. The observations noted in this study need further development in terms of increased number of isolates and proper standardization of Vitamin concentrations, with respect to each antibiotic. Being an invitro study, it does not establish any chemical interactions between Vitamins and antibiotics and needs further research by clinical methods. : The interaction of Vitamin C on antibacterial against common respiratory pathogens needs further exploration in the area of research as they show interesting results when studied invitro under a small sample size.