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August 24, 2010

Micronutrient Supplements May Be Beneficial For People With HIV (AIDS 2010)

The AIDS Beacon: "Research presented at the 2010 International AIDS Conference suggests certain vitamins and minerals, known as micronutrients, may help delay HIV disease progression and improve immune health of people living with HIV."

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

DEFEATING INFECTIOUS DISORDERS BY STIMULATING IMMUNE FUNCTION

A scientific paradox, as defined by Geoffrey W. Hoffmann, Julia G. Levy, and Gerald T. Nepom in “Paradoxes in Immunology”, exists when there is a conflict between some well-supported and widely accepted theoretical dogma or framework. The new data is a paradox within the prevailing framework of experimental or observational data. According to these writers, "Paradoxes play a pivotal role in the advancement of science.” Many major breakthroughs in science were preceded by the emergence of one or more paradoxes; the prelude to what Thomas Kuhn called a "paradigm shift." Einstein's theory of relativity, Plank's quantum theory, and Darwin's natural selection were all scientific paradoxes.

Stimulating immune function to perform efficiently is the logical approach to defeating pathogens. Such stimulation is propagandized as unavailable, when Shenkman documented the potent immunostimulating and antibacterial properties of lithium in 1980, and I in 1981 the first of nine review articles on the remarkable immunostimulating and antimicrobial properties of lithium and antidepressants. My “Stimulating immune function to kill viruses” was recently released (Amazon), and applies also to bacteria, parasites, and fungi. A therapeutic claim is reinforced when the mechanism is known. In this case, minute molecules known as prostaglandins, when produced excessively, depress every component of immune function, and induce microbial replication. In the early nineteen seventies, my late colleague David Horrobin and others showed that antidepressants and lithium inhibit prostaglandins.

Lithium has immunostimulating, antiviral and antibacterial properties, antidepressants immunostimulating, antiviral, antibacterial, antiparasite, and fungicidal properties. Lithium is often effective for paronychia, chalazions, bacterial skin infections, urinary tract infections, canker sores, cold sores and genital herpes, antidepressants for canker sores, cold sores, genital herpes, and probably T.B, malaria, and HIV. A recent study has shown that antidepressants frequently reduce HIV viral load to undetectable. Both lithium and antidepressants prevent recurrences of flu’ like colds, thus both could be effective for HINI. Lithium has untapped potential in methicillin-resistant staphylococcal infections, (MRSA) hospital acquired infections (HAIs) septicemia, and pressure ulcers (bed sores).

With the threats posed by resistant T.B, HIV, and bacteria, and the emerging resistance of the malaria parasite to artemisin, the availability of immunostimulation becomes all the more crucial. Government and private laboratories are pursuing immunostimulation in the context of infection and cancer; they are unlikely to succeed. In a review published in 1983, I proposed that to stimulate immune function, an agent must have mood elevating properties. Over the past quarter of a century, I appealed to innumerable individuals or institutions to support the advance, none of whom obliged. Financial and nonfinancial conflicts of interest were surely involved. Immunostimulation was available as early as 1980, the consequences of its suppression a catastrophe.


Lieb, J.”The immunostimulating and antimicrobial properties of lithium and antidepressants.” J Infection (2004) 49 88-93

A complete bibliography is available in Lieb, J. “Stimulating immune function to kill viruses.” (And bacteria, parasites, and fungi). (2009) Amazon

These comments are intended for education only. All treatment decisions should be made with a physician.

I m a semi-retired, former Yale medical school psychiatry professor, and author or coauthor of forty- eight articles and eleven books.




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