by PARRIS M. KIDD, Ph.D.
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Stopping HIV-1 and AIDS
Through Total Health Management |
Had an HIV test recently? If you do have HIV,
finding out early is your best chance to survive.
With HIV infection, as with any other
disease, early intervention and total health
management are the keys to a long and
healthy life.
AIDS is now the worst epidemic in history,
worse than Europe’s black plague of
the Middle Ages and worse than the great
influenza epidemic of 1918–1920. So far
AIDS has killed more than 16 million people
and about 34 million people are carrying
HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS. In the
United States, HIV-1 now infects at least
40,000 new victims each year, most of them
heterosexual.
From this epidemic’s beginning people
with HIV-1 (PHIV) found they could stay
more healthy and delay progression into
AIDS by taking dietary supplements, cutting
out drinking and smoking or “recreational
drugs,” and doing regular physical
exercise. Some of the people who embraced
this early total health management strategy
are still around. They and their doctors
were the true AIDS pioneers. Now after
almost two decades of intensive research,
this strategy is still the only way to stay alive
with HIV-1.
There isn’t a cure for AIDS yet, no magic
bullet. The vaccines aren’t working out and
the drugs have severe side effects while failing
to block resistant virus strains. The use
of three drugs in combination sometimes
brings the patient’s virus load way down, at
least until resistant strains emerge. Then the
combination has to be changed, which lasts
for awhile until it has to be changed again,
and always there are bad side effects. It is
best not to have the virus at all, otherwise
it’s better to stop HIV infection from progressing
into AIDS, and this can be done.
Progression from the asymptomatic
“HIV-1 disease” to the life-threatening disease
called AIDS typically takes seven to 10
years and multiple factors speed or slow the
process. Many factors are under the control
of the PHIV. For example, back in 1990, as
I was doing my book on AIDS, I found that
smoking speeds progression by about two
times, as does drug abuse. Making the commitment
to a healthy way of living gives the
PHIV a chance to go for decades without
developing into AIDS.
One negative factor not totally under
the PHIV’s control is having to share the
planet’s heavy burden of environmental
toxins. The immune system organs—thymus,
spleen, bone marrow, lymph nodes—
are vulnerable to toxins because they’re continually
making new cells and the dividing
cells are more easily damaged. Also, individual
immune cells circulate with the
blood and these “warrior” cells are exceptionally
vulnerable to blood-borne toxins.
These include thousands of chemicals from
cigarette smoke, chlorinated hydrocarbons
from pesticides and herbicides, solvents
coming from industrial activity and the
toxic metals such as lead, mercury, arsenic,
cadmium, asbestos and aluminum. All these
contribute to throwing the immune functions
out of healthy balance. It is very hard
for the individual PHIV to avoid toxins when
literally billions of pounds are being released
into the air, water and soils each year.
High toxic body burden can cripple
immunity, allowing the virus to build up
and thereby speed the progression to AIDS.
We are being forced by polluters to carry a
higher toxic burden than ever before in history.
All 100 percent of Americans carry at
least five organic toxins in our fatty tissues
and three out of every four of us carry at
least 20 of them. Perhaps the most
immunotoxic are the organochlorine compounds
(OCCs). Like the OCCs, the toxic
metals have no safe lower threshold for
exposure and their toxicity is amplified in
the presence of other toxins. Reducing the
toxic metal burden by chelation therapy
can significantly improve immunity and
antiviral resistance.
Modern foods also are a major source of
toxins. Fried fatty foods carry high levels of
lipid peroxides, which are toxic to immunity.
Sugar (sucrose) digested from high-carbohydrate
foods competes with vitamin C
for absorption from the intestine. And the
OCC toxins are widespread in common
foods: 100 percent of raisin samples tested
by the U.S. Department of Agriculture had
OCCs, as did spinach (fresh and frozen),
chili con carne and beef. Also frequently
contaminated were strawberries, bell peppers,
cherries, cantaloupes, grapes, celery,
apples, apricots, peaches, and cucumbers.
Foods carrying toxins are nutritionally
inferior and the body’s immune system is
so busy that it uses a lot of nutrients and
needs lots of good food to help replace
them. This system is the body’s defense
against viruses, other infectious agents, foreign
chemicals (“xenobiotics”), invaders of
all kinds. Immune cells make free radicals
to attack enemies so they need extra
antioxidant defenses. Their free radical
activity burns away vitamins C and E and
requires selenium, zinc, copper and manganese
to keep the antioxidant enzymes
active. As HIV-1 itself attacks immune
cells, this often triggers an inflammatory
“fight back” that also burns away antioxidants
along with other nutrients. The viral
load from HIV-1 infection also diverts vital
energy from normal, healthy functions into serving the needs of the virus, namely to
make more virus. Supplementation with
energy-cofactor nutrients such as the B vitamins,
CoQ10 and carnitine are also strongly
indicated.
Around 67 percent of all PHIV and 87 percent
of patients with AIDS have clearly
defined nutritional deficiencies. Deficiencies
in vitamins A and B12 are related to a decline
in “CD4” or T-helper cell counts, betacarotene
deficiency, to increased risk for diarrhea.
Magnesium deficiency is common and
selenium declines consistently as HIV disease
progresses. Unless corrected, nutritional deficiencies
will speed progression to AIDS. For
example, a group of HIV+ men followed for
six years were found less likely to progress to
AIDS when their vitamin E intake was doubled
over the (puny) RDA level.
The anti-retroviral drugs are artificial substances
which block either of two viral
enzymes that the virus uses to make new
virus particles. The enzymes involved are
reverse transcriptase (RT) and protease. The
anti-retroviral drugs are currently of three
kinds: (1) Nucleoside reverse transcriptase
inhibitors (NRTI, or “nukes”); (2) Non-nucleoside
reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI
or “non-nukes”); (3) Protease Inhibitors, or
PI. These drugs do a pretty good job of
blocking virus reproduction but they also
block the similar enzymes carried within our
own body cells and used for our own essential
life functions. Therefore these drugs have
severe negative side effects in persons who
take them.
The adverse side effects of the anti-HIV
drugs range from severe skin rashes to death
within hours from hypersensitivity responses.
The “nukes” often cause nerve damage
(“peripheral neuropathy”) and can cause
throat swelling, nausea and diarrhea, along
with inflammation of the pancreas and lifethreatening
liver damage. The “non-nukes”
alter enzymes in the liver that usually help
dispose of drugs, pollutants and excess body
hormones. As a consequence the non-nukes
have major negative interactions with commonly
used drugs like alcohol, acetaminophen
(Tylenol®) and phenobarbital. One
non-nuke (efavirenz, SustivaTM) caused monkey
infants to develop abnormally (teratogenesis)
and the other non-Nukes haven’t been
tested for these effects. Efavirenz also causes
central nervous system symptoms in more
than half of all patients: dizziness, sleepiness,
insomnia, abnormal dreams, confusion,
abnormal thinking, impaired concentration,
amnesia, agitation, depersonalization, hallucinations
and euphoria.
The PIs aren’t any better for side effects.
They drive blood cholesterol and triglycerides
abnormally high and increase risk of
heart disease. They drive up blood sugar,
probably by damaging the pancreas. They
cause intestinal discomfort, often with nausea
and diarrhea, can cause kidney stones and
liver damage and like the nukes and nonnukes,
also feature major negative drug interactions.
All this makes it extremely challenging
for the PHIV to take these drugs on an
ongoing daily basis, yet when they come off
the drugs they soon experience an increase in
viral load and likely further loss of CD4 cells.
The drugs do extend life in almost 80 percent
of patients who take them but only if taken
every single day at the right times and only if
the side effects don’t kill the patient.
We don’t often get much about
these killer side effects in the mass
media articles and pharmaceutical
industry propaganda that trumpet “the new
generation of life-extending AIDS drugs.” In
many AIDS doctors’ practices, most of the
precious time available for seeing the patient
is now spent dealing with the side effects of
the anti-retroviral drugs. And ironically,
many PHIVs probably could get by without
using the drugs, by practicing total health
management.
As the PHIV person considers whether to
go onto a drug combination, several facts are
worth considering. First, the drugs can be
useful but are not a cure. Second, not everyone
needs to take the drugs unless they are
unable to control their viral load within reasonable
limits. Third, if they do decide to
take the drugs, they also can take nutrients
which will help to better tolerate the drugs,
while not interfering with their benefits.
There are two crucial keys to surviving with
HIV: one is to lower the viral load, the other
to keep the immune system functional. What
then if there were a nontoxic alternative that
would achieve these two goals?
There is such an alternative: a mixture of
plant nutrients called phytosterols—mainly
beta-sitosterol (BSS) and beta-sitosterol glucoside
(BSSG). In a long-term clinical trial
conducted in South Africa a unique combination
of the BSS and BSSG phytosterols
(ModucareTM SterinolTM Complex) increased CD4 numbers and in some subjects also
reduced viral load. The trial was carried out
at a university, where 123 HIV+ subjects were
studied in comparison with 23 healthy control
subjects.
As the HIV+ subjects were followed over a
period of more than two years, their CD4
counts stabilized. Subjects who began the
study with CD4 counts higher than 500
(CD4+, healthy) experienced increases; those
with 200–500 (progressing HIV-positives)
hardly lost any numbers and remained within
this range; and those with less than 200
(diagnosis AIDS) experienced only very slight
decline. Viral load in those with CD4 less
than 500 remained stable and did not
increase; in those with more than 500, viral
load actually went down. Of this latter
group, 15 percent had undetectable viral load
after 12 months.
The ModucareTM SterinolTM phytosterols
are chemically related to cholesterol but
compete against animal-source cholesterol in
the body, working naturally to have a positive
rebalancing effect on the immune system.
They are potent immune modulators, since
they enhance immunity across the board by
improving immune cell efficiency and rebalancing
cell-to-cell coordination. They have
just about zero adverse effects and are economically
affordable. No wonder, then, that
some 12 African countries have officially
approved their use.
The ModucareTM SterinolTM phytosterols are not magic bullets for PHIV but their benefit-
risk characteristics are far superior over
the available drugs. PHIV could use them to
support the immune system’s capacity to
hold the virus down, prior to jumping into
the murky and dangerous world of the nukes
and other anti-retroviral drugs. These antiretroviral
drugs are now so complicated and
dangerous to manage that only specialized
AIDS physicians can effectively manage
patients taking them.
Total health management of AIDS
should involve every possible approach
to maintaining health and restoring
damaged body functions to normal. This
includes cleaning up the diet, eliminating
nutritional deficiencies, reducing the body
burden of metals and organics, correcting
intestinal bacterial imbalances (“dysbiosis”),
exercising daily, using immune modulators
like ModucareTM SterinolTM early in the disease
and going with the drugs only as a last
resort. Toxic medication should be the final
option, after other safer approaches have
been thoroughly explored. It’s better not to
have the virus at all but for the individual
with HIV, a truly total approach to health
management offers the best chances for a
long and happy life.
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