Many people, including myself, believe that the cornerstone nutrient for any plan aimed at successfully managing HIV and preventing the onset of AIDS is the unassuming vitamin C.
For the past century, medicine has focused on drugs – designed to destroy invaders, whether they are antibiotics, antiviral medications, or chemotherapy. But what if, in addition to the drug cocktail, you also need to enhance your immune system? This is the difference between asymptomatic HIV infection and AIDS.
Many people, including myself, believe that the cornerstone nutrient for any plan aimed at successfully managing HIV and preventing the onset of AIDS is the unassuming vitamin C. This does not mean just drinking a gram of orange juice, but rather taking a gram every hour (you would need a full 22 oranges to make up one gram).
This high dosage has been touted as a cure for everything from the common cold to cancer. Not only does it help in the maturation of immune cells, but vitamin C (which is itself an antiviral and antibacterial agent) can also improve the performance of the body’s immune cell population. It is also capable of breaking down toxins produced by bacteria and acts as a natural antihistamine to calm inflammation. Elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol (an effective immunosuppressive factor) can be controlled with sufficient vitamin C.
In vitro (laboratory) tests on human T cells (a type of immune cell) infected with HIV have been studied with vitamin C, showing favorable results compared to AZT (the first prescription drug for HIV). Unfortunately, due to the lack of patentability of vitamin C, there is insufficient funding to test its effects on HIV infected individuals. When a substance cannot be patented, the profit margin is minimal, and pharmaceutical companies are simply not interested.
However, two studies have shown positive effects of vitamin C supplementation, one of which was conducted in Tanzania. This study involved providing high-intensity multivitamins, including 500 milligrams of vitamin C, to over a thousand HIV-positive pregnant women. Although the amount of vitamin C was only a small fraction of what laboratory tests deemed optimal for viral suppression, the results were decisive: the risk of women entering the late stages of AIDS was significantly reduced, and AIDS-related mortality decreased.
Dr. Jon Kaiser in San Francisco is a pioneer in combining the best natural nutrients with standard medical therapies to treat HIV, and his case records reveal astonishing levels of clinical success. As of March 1994, Dr. Kaiser had tracked the progress of 300 HIV infected and AIDS patients for seven years. Only 20 of them died. “It is now clear that many of my patients are reversing the damage caused by HIV and are actually rebuilding their immune systems,” says Dr. Kaiser. Truly inspiring words.