The Tragedy of Trivializing Natural Medicine Combined with Ignorance in HIV-AIDS

I was at the Stanford 10 year reunion, and I had someone come up to me and ask if I was going to prescribe beet-root, olive, lemon, and garlic to them.

The answer is a resounding yes, but only in the proper preparation, dosing, and indication. The idea that a salad or glass of veggie juice is going to help you in severe disease is, of course, absurd. So no, I am not going to suggest you eat a salad to cure your disease, which in this case may be mental. It turns out that a trained biologist, not a politician, or a trust-fund daughter with no background in biology would be able to see that each one of those have anti-viral molecules within them. If you were to extract and concentrate these, you would have an effective anti-viral medication. It really is sad that wealth blinds people from the truth.


BEET ROOT:

1: Cancer Lett. 1996 Feb 27;100(1-2):211-4.

Chemoprevention of lung and skin cancer by Beta vulgaris (beet) root extract.

Kapadia GJ, Tokuda H, Konoshima T, Nishino H.

Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical
Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA.

The in vitro inhibitory effect of Beta vulgaris (beet) root extract on Epstein-Barr virus early antigen (EBV-EA) induction using Raji cells revealed a high order of activity compared to capsanthin, cranberry, red onion skin and short and long red bell peppers. An in vivo anti-tumor promoting activity evaluation against the mice skin and lung bioassays also revealed a significant tumor inhibitory effect. The combined findings suggest that beetroot ingestion can be one of the useful means to prevent cancer.

OLIVE:

PMID: 8620443 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

1: FEBS Lett. 2007 Jun 12;581(14):2737-42. Epub 2007 May 21.

Computational study of bindings of olive leaf extract (OLE) to HIV-1 fusion
protein gp41.

Bao J, Zhang DW, Zhang JZ, Huang PL, Huang PL, Lee-Huang S.

Department of Chemistry, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.

Recent experimental study found that OLE (olive leaf extract) has anti-HIV activity by blocking the HIV virus entry to host cells [Lee-Huang, S., Zhang, L., Huang, P.L., Chang, Y. and Huang, P.L. (2003) Anti-HIV activity of olive leaf extract (OLE) and modulation of host cell gene expression by HIV-1 infection and OLE treatment. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 307, 1029; Lee-Huang, S., Huang, P.L., Zhang, D., Lee, J.W., Bao, J., Sun, Y., Chang, Y.-Tae, Zhang, J.Z.H. and Huang, P.L. (2007) Discovery of small-molecule HIV-1 fusion and integrase inhibitors oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 354, 872-878, 879-884]. As part of a joint experimental and theoretical effort, we report here computational study to help identify and characterize the binding complexes of several main compounds of OLE (olive leaf extract) to HIV-1 envelop protein gp41. A number of possible binding modes are found by docking oleuropein and its metabolites, aglycone, elenolic acid and hydroxytyrosol, onto the hydrophobic pocket on gp41. Detailed OLE-gp41 binding interactions and free energies of binding are obtained through molecular dynamics simulation and MM-PBSA calculation. Specific molecular interactions in our predicted OLE/gp41 complexes are identified and hydroxytyrosol is identified to be the main moiety for binding to gp41. This computational study complements the corresponding experimental investigation and helps establish a good starting point for further refinement of OLE-based gp41 inhibitors.

LEMON:

PMID: 17537437 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

1: J Biol Chem. 2004 Sep 3;279(36):37349-59. Epub 2004 Jun 24.

Imperatorin inhibits HIV-1 replication through an Sp1-dependent pathway.

Sancho R, Márquez N, Gómez-Gonzalo M, Calzado MA, Bettoni G, Coiras MT, Alcamí J,
López-Cabrera M, Appendino G, Muñoz E.

Departamento de Biología Celular, Fisiología e Inmunología, Universidad de
Córdoba, Facultad de Medicina, Avda. de Menendez Pidal s/n, 14004 Córdoba, Spain.

Coumarins and structurally related compounds have been recently shown to present anti-human immunodeficiency virus, type 1 (HIV-1) activity. Among them, the dietary furanocoumarin imperatorin is present in citrus fruits, in culinary herbs, and in some medicinal plants. In this study we report that imperatorin inhibits either vesicular stomatitis virus-pseudotyped or gp160-enveloped recombinant HIV-1 infection in several T cell lines and in HeLa cells. These recombinant viruses express luciferase as a marker of viral replication. Imperatorin did not inhibit the reverse transcription nor the integration steps in the viral cell cycle. Using several 5' long terminal repeat-HIV-1 constructs where critical response elements were either deleted or mutated, we found that the transcription factor Sp1 is critical for the inhibitory activity of imperatorin induced by both phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate and HIV-1 Tat. Moreover in transient transfections imperatorin specifically inhibited phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate-induced transcriptional activity of the Gal4-Sp1 fusion protein. Since Sp1 is also implicated in cell cycle progression we further studied the effect of imperatorin on cyclin D1 gene transcription and protein expression and in HeLa cell cycle progression. W e found that imperatorin strongly inhibited cyclin D1 expression and arrested the cells at the G(1) phase of the cell cycle. These results highlight the potential of Sp1 transcription factor as a target for natural anti-HIV-1 compounds such as furanocoumarins that might have a potential therapeutic role in the management of AIDS.


GARLIC:

PMID: 15218031 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

1: Vestn Ross Akad Med Nauk. 1992;(11-12):6-10.

[The ajoene blockade of integrin-dependent processes in an HIV-infected cell
system]

[Article in ]

Tatarintsev AV, Vrzhets PV, Ershov DE, Shchegolev AA, Turgiev AS, Karamov EV,
Kornilaeva GV, Makarova TV, Fedorov NA, Varfolomeev SD.

Ajoene, (E,Z)-4,5,9-trithiadodeca-1,6,11-triene-9-oxide, isolated from extracts of garlic (Allium sativum) has been previously shown to inhibit platelet aggregation by inactivating allosterically the platelet integrin, GP IIb/IIIa. The structural and functional similarity of integrins led the authors to suggest that ajoene may also inhibit adhesive interactions and fusion of leukocytes. Synthetic stereoisomers of ajoene synthesized by the authors exhibited equal antiaggregatory activities (IC100 approximately 50 microM for platelets; IC100 approximately 10 microM for fMLP-stimulated neutrophils). Racemic ajoene inhibited the fusion of H9 cells with HIV-infected H9:RF cells (IC50 approximately 45 microM; 16 h of incubation) and also exhibited a degree of antiviral activity (IC50 approximately 5 microM as assessed by inhibition of HIV-1/CEM/Lav 1 Bru replication in CEM13 cells; m. o. i. 0.1; 72 h). A
considerable increase in the latter became evident when the compound was administered in aliquots of 50 microM per 12 h of incubation (inhibition by 30%; total concentration 0.25 microM; 72 h).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


PMID: 1284227 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

It's proof that an ivy league education doesn't do away with bias, bigotry, and superiority complexes that can blind you to the truth. When there is a real, good, affordable cure, then maybe you can ridicule these sources of medicine, which were the origins of modern medicine anyways. Until then, leave the research alone and stick to whatever you took classes for.