BITE Study results of the nutritional supplement NR100157 presented recently at the 49th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC 2009) in San Francisco suggests that many treatment-naive HIV+ individuals can slow their CD4 cell loss by taking a daily nutritional supplement. Participants in the study were randomly selected and divided into a control group and a group designated to take the nutritional supplement. Those participants taking the nutritional supplement lost an average of fewer than half of the CD4 cells than did their peers in the control arm of the study. The average yearly CD4 cell loss for participants in the nutritional supplement arm of the study was 28 CD4 cells vs 68 CD4 cells in the control group not taking supplementation. The viral load of participants in both arms of the study remained stable.
The 340 study participants were 80 per cent male with an average age of 40 years. They had tested HIV+ an average of 420 days prior to beginning the study and had an average of 420 CD4 cells with an average viral load of approximately 32,000 copies.
Researchers composed the NR100157 compound of singular ingredients that had previously shown an immune benefit when studied alone. NR100157 contains vitamins and minerals, bovine colostrum, omega-3 fatty acids, N-acetyle cysteine, and prebiotic oligosaccharides. The individual ingredients are aimed at reducing oxidative stress on the body, enhancing nutrient absorption in the body, and maintaining digestive tract integrity. Further studies are needed but the NR100157 study could lead to longer, healthier lives for HIV+ individuals, potentially reduce the high lifetime expenditures for anti-HIV medications, and possibly delay treatment initiation.
HIV and Hepatitis.com Coverage of the
49th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC 2009)
