Summary
Deoxyfructosylserotonin (DFS), a stable derivative of serotonin, was shown to have an anti-leprosy effect (Mester and Antia). Therefore, a tryptophan-enriched food (NAL) was devised to increase the concentration of free tryptophan as serotonin precursor in blood.
32 multibacillary lepromatous leprosy patients were divided in 3 groups receiving: 1) MDT (multi-drug therapy, control — 8 patients), 2) NAL (50 g/day — 13 patients) and 3) NAL + 1/2 MDT (11 patients). The clinical improvement (clinical score) was 24.2% for 1), 19.9% for 2) and 30.4% for 3). The loss of viability of theM. leprae bacilli in the mouse foot-pad test was 66% for 1), 75% for 2) and 70% for 3). The improvement by serodiagnosis (ELISA) was 19.4% for 1), 25.1% for 2) and 23.3% for 3).
These preliminary results (6 months) suggest that the NAL-food is efficient against leprosy and apparently not very different from the control MDT in that respect.
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Mauron, J., Ganapati, R., Mahadevan, P.R. et al. The use of an amino acid as a precursor of a bioactive metabolite in combatting an infectious disease: The efficacy of a tryptophan-enriched diet in the treatment of leprosy. Amino Acids 2, 255–269 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00805947
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00805947