Archive for the ‘HIV’ Category

HIV: MEDICAL TREATMENTS-ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: DIETARY MODIFICATION

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

Dietary modification can mean almost anything. Certainly, physicians practicing traditional medicine say that good nutrition is an important part of health care for someone with HIV infection. Practitioners of alternative treatments usually define dietary modification as certain diets or food supplements that inhibit the growth of HIV or that enhance the immune system.     Probably the most popular of the alternative diets is a macrobiotic diet. Macrobiotic diets are said to balance foods with yin (foods which form acids in the body) and foods with yang (foods which form alkalines in the body). The macrobiotic diet consists largely of vegetables and grains. It excludes red meat, commercially raised poultry, all processed foods, polished rice, dairy products, leavened breads, and sugars. Dietitians say that a macrobiotic diet lacks essential nutrients and is potentially harmful.     Other practitioners of dietary modification advocate food supplements—a list of certain substances said to inhibit the growth of HIV or enhance the immune system. None of these supplements has, by the standards of traditional medicine, established that they will help. Some of the most common supplements are the following:     Acidophilus, a bacterium available without prescription in drugstores and health food stores that is supposed to produce a healthy intestinal tract. Acidophilus is harmless.     AL721, a substance derived from egg yolk that is supposed to inhibit the growth of HIV. AL721 was tested in scientific studies; though found to be useless against HIV, it is also harmless.     Coenzyme Q10, an antioxidant that is supposed to improve the immune system. It is harmless.     Garlic, which is widely advocated in herbal medicine and is available in an odorless and tasteless form called kyolic. It is harmless.     Lecithin, which is related to AL721 and is harmless.     Lentinan, an extract from mushrooms, called mushroom power or Lentil, is said to act against HIV. It is harmless.     Vitamin C, which is often advocated in large doses for HIV infection and a whole host of other medical conditions. Advocates often recommend taking 1,000 milligrams or more a day. Vitamin C has also been studied scientifically, to see if it combats colds and cancer; it does not. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) of Vitamin C, 60 milligrams a day, is certainly good for you. Most people get more than the RDA in a standard diet. The large doses advocated in alternative medicine can cause stomach pain and diarrhea. They can also corrode the teeth—practitioners advocate taking large doses by straw.     Vitamin A, also advocated in large doses, which are said to promote the growth of CD4 cells. The RDA for Vitamin A, 3,000 International Units per day, is good for you; doses of 100,000 International Units per day for three months or more can cause dry and itchy skin, sore mouth, loss of hair, vomiting, headaches, drowsiness, and liver damage.     Zinc, a metal that occurs in traces in the body. In the later stages of HIV infection, concentrations of zinc in the body seem to decrease. Taking zinc as a supplement, however, can cause nausea and vomiting and is possibly harmful.     Selenium, another trace metal that also seems to occur in lower concentrations in people in the later stages of HIV infection. Excess selenium causes damage to cells; taking selenium as a supplement is possibly harmful.*194\191\2*

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HIV INFECTION AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE BODY: ASYMPTOMATIC PERIOD-KEEPING TRACK OF ASYMPTOMATIC HIV INFECTION

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
During the asymptomatic period, your physician will probably keep track of the progress of the infection by physical examinations and with two principal tests. One test is to count, at regular intervals, the number of CD4 cells in the blood. The normal count is between 700 and 1,300 CD4 cells per milliliter of blood (five milliliters is one teaspoon). The average person has a CD4 count of about 1,000. People’s CD4 counts vary for several reasons. One reason is that different laboratories, counting CD4 cells in the same person or the same blood sample on the same day, can get counts that differ by as much as 20 percent. Another reason is that the CD4 count naturally varies in any one person over time, for reasons that are independent of HIV infection but are poorly understood. Consequently, a CD4 count of 500 one time may be 400 or 600 the next time; this is considered a normal variation. Because of this normal variability in the counts, a test showing a dramatic change in the count might need to be repeated.
In a person with HIV infection, the CD4 count decreases, on average, by 85 to 100 cells per year. Most people do not develop symptoms until their CD4 counts are below 300, and the average CD4 count for a person with an AIDS-defining diagnosis is 50—100. At a decrease of about 100 CD4 cells a year, the person who starts with a count of about 1,000 will develop symptoms after five to eight years, and will develop AIDS two or three years after that. The CD4 counts in some people fall more rapidly, while the CD4 counts in other people stabilize for several years. The CD4 count is the best measure of the progress of the infection. Physicians also use the CD4 count to determine what sorts of treatment will be helpful and to determine the benefit of the treatments used.
A second method for keeping track of the infection is through blood counts. Blood counts are counts of the numbers of the different kinds of cells in the blood: red cells, white cells, and platelets. Red blood cells deliver oxygen to the rest of the body; without enough oxygen, the
person loses energy, is tired much of the time. A low count of red blood cells is called anemia. White blood cells (the CD4 cell is only one kind of white blood cell) are part of the immune system’s defense against certain types of infection. A low count of white blood cells is called leukopenia. Platelets are cells that are critical in the process of blood clotting; a low number of platelets may result in excessive bleeding. During the asymptomatic period, the blood counts, like the CD4 counts, may also fall. That means that the body has progressively fewer red blood cells, fewer white blood cells, and/or fewer platelets. The body, however, has a great reserve, a large overabundance, of all three kinds of blood cells. The blood count must be lowered severely before symptoms occur.
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TRANSMISSION OF HIV

Friday, April 22nd, 2011
HIV is transmitted—that is, the virus enters the body—almost invariably by sexual contact, by blood-to-blood contact, or through pregnancy.
When HIV enters the body, it attaches itself only to certain sites on the walls of certain cells. The site on the cell wall is called the CD4 receptor, and the cell most commonly infected is called the CD4 cell. The CD4 cell is a white blood cell, or a lymphocyte. It belongs to a class of lymphocytes called T cells, which, along with B cells, are central parts of the immune system. (The CD4 cell is also called a T4 cell and a T-helper cell.) The CD4 cell’s job is to help coordinate the immune system’s defense against a variety of infectious diseases. HIV is carried by CD4 cells and other white blood cells to all parts of the body, including the brain. HIV also attaches itself to certain cells in the brain.
Once HIV attaches to a CD4 cell, it enters the cell. At this point, in a complicated series of events, the virus becomes part of the cell’s genes. Genes are composed of DNA, a molecule which is responsible for directing the reproduction of the cell. HIV is a virus and has only RNA, a molecule which is actually the mirror image of DNA but which cannot produce new viruses. HIV, however, is a retrovirus, meaning that it has a protein called reverse transcriptase. Reverse transcriptase allows the viral RNA to turn into a mirror image of itself; that is, it allows viral RNA to turn into viral DNA. This DNA then directs the infected cell to produce, not new CD4 cells, but new HIVs instead. The virus eventually destroys the CD4 cell, and the new viruses that have been produced then infect other CD4 cells. As CD4 cells are infected and destroyed, the immune system functions less and less effectively.
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