On 27 May 2006, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution saying that nutrition plays a major role in AIDS and that intervention that increases access to necessary nutrients be given priority by the member states and the Director-General of the World Health Organisation.
Demonstrators demand Aids treatment at the margins of the Toronto Aids Conference
In reporting this development, Paul Taylor commented:
Slowly, but surely, evidence is beginning to emerge that some senior officials within the UN may perhaps be beginning to get the message about the relationship between poor nutrition, depressed immunity, and AIDS.
Taken alongside the recent 3-page World Health Assembly resolution calling on Member States to ensure that special attention be given to integrating nutrition into all HIV/AIDS policies, this is undoubtedly good news.
Clearly, however, and bearing in mind Rugulema's statement that he would like to see "good ARV treatment programmes", there is still undoubtedly a long way to go.
This is in reference to an article on iafrica.com, titled 'The hungry can't eat Aids messages', which expands on the point.
Good nutrition could be the only available life prolonging alternative to people living with HIV/Aids in rural areas, a senior officer for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday.
"Sick people can't farm, they can't work. Hungry people can't eat Aids messages," said HIV/Aids and food security officer Dr Gabriel Rugulema, speaking to journalists ahead of the 16th International Aids conference in Toronto which starts on Sunday.
He said people who had little access to food could not be bothered with Aids warnings. Bad nutrition depressed the immune system, resulting in a higher likelihood of contracting HIV, the faster development of Aids and subsequent death.
I have earlier reported on the importance of particular nutrients in the prevention of Aids complications, and in 'turning off' the infection. Harvard University confirmed in a research in Tanzania, that a multivitamin supplement slowed and in some cases prevented the appearance of clinical Aids symptoms. Bill Sardi says vitamin C is an immensely important nutrient for the immune compromised, and he describes the controversy in South Africa over Dr. Mathias Rath's advocacy of nutritional intervention against the spread of Aids. According to orthomolecular medicine proponents, Aids patients are depleted of selenium, a mineral with anti-viral properties, and three important aminoacids. When supplied, these nutrients can reverse symptoms, and some patients have been known to switch to "HIV negative".
Beldeu Singh, a health researcher in Malaysia, agrees that nutrition is important. Here are his comments, and an article on the Epstein-Barr virus in Aids:
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About time...
Yes its about time that the UN policies on AIDS pursue a proper and biochemically logical response and practices that promote integration of nutrition into a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS.
This is primarily because many AIDS patients do not have the virus, pointing clearly to oxidative stress in malnourished people as the actual cause factor of AIDS and even when the reactivated EBV is involved, in certain groups of people, in the destruction of parts of the immune system, it occurs in conditions of oxidative stress and more startling is the fact that when EBV viral parts 'hide' in cells of the immune system, they are reactivated by hydrogen peroxide which is a by-product of oxidative stress. So, however you look at the AIDS condition, oxidative stress is a critical factor. Logically, therefore nutritional intervention is the key and should form the basic thrust in responding to the AIDS problem.
Resolution WHA57.14 which urged Member States, inter alia, to pursue policies and practices that promote integration of nutrition into a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS is therefore considered urgent.
The recommendations of WHO's technical consultation on nutrition and HIV/AIDS in Africa (Durban, South Africa, 10-13 April 2005), which were based on the main findings of a detailed review of the latest scientific evidence on the macronutrient and micronutrient needs of HIV-infected people, including pregnant and lactating women and patients on antiretroviral therapy, make more sense now than before these recommendations were drafted.
Based on the oxidative factor and the reactivated EBV factor for AIDS causation, noting the fact that hydrogen peroxide (a by-product of oxidative reactions in the body), I fully concur with the WHO technical note that food and adequate nutrition are often identified as the most immediate and critical needs by people living with, or affected by, the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Many of us have advocating nutritional therapies for a long time, because we did not accept the Gallo-HIV as "the probable cause of AIDS" as a result of which we were called the dissident group by the establishment that remains as the proponent of the official view that the Gallo-HIV is the cause of AIDS.
BELDEU SINGH
P/s I hope you recieved my article on the EPSTEIN-BARR Virus in AIDS
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I have indeed received the article, and it is here for readers interested in the medical details...
THE EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS IN AIDS
Epstein-Barr virus, frequently referred to as EBV, is a member of the herpesvirus family and one of the most common human viruses. The virus occurs worldwide, and most people become infected with EBV sometime during their lives. In the United States, as many as 95% of adults between 35 and 40 years of age have been infected. Infants become susceptible to EBV as soon as maternal antibody protection (present at birth) disappears (National Center for Infectious Diseases Epstein-Barr Virus and Infectious Mononucleosis, Updated:08/25/200).
In Third World nations, most children are infected with EBV; in most industrialized nations, about 50% of the people are infected (Encyclopedia: Epstein-Barr virus, Sixth Edition, Copyright © 2006 Columbia University Press).
Symptoms of infectious mononucleosis are fever, sore throat, and swollen lymph glands. Sometimes, a swollen spleen or liver involvement may develop. Heart problems or involvement of the central nervous system occurs only rarely, and infectious mononucleosis is almost never fatal. There are no known associations between active EBV infection and problems during pregnancy, such as miscarriages or birth defects. Although the symptoms of infectious mononucleosis usually resolve in 1 or 2 months.
The problem with the EBV is that it remains latent in the body and can be reactivated. EBV remains dormant or latent in a few cells in the throat and blood for the rest of the person's life. Periodically, the virus can reactivate and is commonly found in the saliva of infected persons. This reactivation usually occurs without symptoms of illness. This may probably be the case in people who are not malnourished.
In immunosuppressed or immunocompromised individuals, EBV can cause (fatal) lymphoproliferative disease. In contrast, in healthy individuals, EBV is well controlled by the immune system. The widespread and mostly asymptomatic persistent EBV infections in adults reflect the balance between viral replication and host immune control (Maaike E. Ressing et al, Epstein-Barr Virus gp42 Is Posttranslationally Modified To Produce Soluble gp42 That Mediates HLA Class II Immune Evasion, Journal of Virology, January 2005, p. 841-852, Vol. 79, No. 2).
"Recent studies have shown that EBV also is associated with B-cell malignancies such as Hodgkinâ•˙s lymphoma (HL) and lymphoproliferative disease in immunosuppressed patients, as well as with some T-cell lymphomas and other epithelial tumors such as gastric cancers. These tumors are characterized by the presence of multiple extrachromosomal copies of the viral genome in tumor cells and the expression of part of the EBV genome" (WHO; Epstein-Barr Virus, Initiative for Vaccine Research (IVR), 2006)).
The cause of alarm stems from the fact that "EBV also establishes a lifelong dormant infection in some cells of the body's immune system. A late event in a very few carriers of this virus is the emergence of Burkitt's lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, two rare cancers that are not normally found in the United States. EBV appears to play an important role in these malignancies, but is probably not the sole cause of disease" (National Center for Infectious Diseases Epstein-Barr Virus and Infectious Mononucleosis, Updated:08/25/200).
It is important to note that EBV is not the sole cause of lymphomas and carcinomas and possibly Hodgkin's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome and accelerated aging and could possibly trigger multiple sclerosis. Perhaps its reactivation is triggered in malnourished people and in people exposed to certain toxic chemicals suggesting an underlying biochemical mechanism common to both situations.
Infection with EBV is characterized by fatigue and general malaise. Infection with EBV is fairly common and is usually a transient and minor thing. However, in some individuals EBV can trigger chronic illness, including immune and lymphoproliferative syndromes. It is a particular danger to people with compromised immune systems, such as from AIDS (ref:MedicineNet.com, Definition of Epstein-Barr virus, 1996-2006 MedicineNet).
EBV is a herpesvirus that is the major cause of infectious mononucleosis and is associated with a number of cancers, particularly lymphomas in immunosuppressed persons, including persons with AIDS. Epstein-Barr is a ubiquitous virus, so common that it has been difficult to determine whether it is the cause of certain diseases or whether it is simply there as an artifact (Encyclopedia: Epstein-Barr virus, Sixth Edition, Copyright © 2006 Columbia University Press).
How was the virus discovered? (ref: Nova Science in the News, Australian Academy of Science, Nov 1997).
In 1961, a surgeon working in Uganda, Denis Burkitt, presented the results of his research to staff at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in Britain. He reported that the incidence of a certain tumour in African children had a geographic distribution corresponding to rainfall and temperature patterns.
The disease, which affects about 8 in every 100,000 children in parts of Africa and Papua New Guinea, quickly became known as Burkitt's lymphoma. The influence of climate on its incidence seemed to suggest that some biological factor was involved. Three researchers, M.A. Epstein, Y.M. Barr and B.G. Achong, immediately began looking for possible cancer-causing viruses in samples of the tumour sent from Uganda to Britain.
In 1964, they identified the culprit using an electron microscope: a previously unknown member of the herpes family of viruses. Epstein and Barr were awarded the dubious honour of having the pathogen named after them.
AIDS sufferers also have reduced immunity and in some AIDS patients also suffer from oral hairy leukoplakia, a condition involving considerable replication of the Epstein-Barr virus in cells along the edge of the tongue. And since Burkitt's lymphoma is prevalent in countries that have high incidence of malaria, researchers have suggested that malaria infection may also play a role in reactivating EBV by possibly suppressing the immune system. The real reason perhaps may be suppression of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in malaria patients rather than something peculiar to malaria as "patients with immunodeficiency, either congenital or acquired (for example after immunosuppressive treatment for organ transplantation or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection) have a much higher risk of developing EBV or HHV-8 associated tumours than the general population, pointing to the crucial role of the immune system in controlling the proliferation of EBV or HHV-8 infected cells (H-J Delecluse et al, The genetic approach to the Epstein-Barr virus: from basic virology to gene therapy, J Clin Pathol: Mol Pathol 2000; 53:270-279).