SUPPLEMENT: The Newsletter of The New York Buyers' Club
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Since its start in 2004, the New York Buyers’ Club has been shipping nutritional supplements, including multivitamins, acetylcarnitine, Thiolnac, Marrow Plus and Florastor®, to The Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe. To date, several thousand dollars worth of shipments have gone out our doors, much donated by NYBC, which has also contributed shipping costs totaling hundreds of dollars. Though it’s a long way from Brooklyn to Zimbabwe, we at NYBC feel very much that The Centre is our kindred organization in the worldwide fight against AIDS. This is an organization that promotes a “holistic approach” to the management of HIV, with an emphasis on nutrition, including nutritional supplements as available. The goal is to maximize limited resources and educate people to give them long-term survival skills. The Centre is very much a community-based organization, offering its counseling and education services in some very hard-pressed neighborhoods of the capital city, Harare, but also reaching out to groups in rural areas of the country. To say that The Centre operates in a difficult environment would be an understatement. Like many other nations in southern Africa, Zimbabwe has a very high rate of HIV infection. (One fifth to one quarter of the population is HIV+, which, if translated into US terms, would mean roughly 60 to 70 million Americans infected.) Meanwhile, only a tiny trickle of antiretroviral medications is reaching the country—they are just too costly to purchase and administer effectively at present. Compounding the country’s problems is its leader, Robert Mugabe, who has been a force of repression at home and has so alienated foreign aid agencies that many of the international organizations have withdrawn or limited their contributions to the country’s struggle against AIDS. To find out more about The Centre’s struggles and their growing programs over the past 10+ years, take a look at their website. (The site is hosted by the Zimbabwean development and human rights portal named “kubatana,” which means “working together.”) And, if you’d like to make a contribution to NYBC’s international programs, including our nutritional supplement shipments to The Centre in Harare, please see our DONATE page. As we now know, just a simple daily multivitamin has been shown to prolong health even in HIV-positive people without access to antiretroviral medications, so even a small gift from you will count in a big way!
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Beauty & The Yeast:
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 If you read the New York Buyers’ Club Catalog and Treatment Guide, you’ll see that L-carnitine and its chemical cousin acetylcarnitine have been studied for more than a decade for their therapeutic effects in people with HIV. The value of L-carnitine in countering drug toxicity and combating HIV-related myopathy (weakening of muscles) became so clear that a pharmaceutical version, named Carnitor® , was developed. (It’s available by prescription from your doctor, and can be covered by insurance programs such as Medicaid in New York State.) Acetylcarnitine, meanwhile, has intrigued researchers for its effect on neurological function. Perhaps its clearest success so far has come as a treatment for peripheral neuropathy, a condition marked by pain, tingling, and loss of sensation in the hands and feet. People with diabetes frequently develop peripheral neuropathy, and the condition also surfaces in those with HIV who are taking NRTIs (nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitors). A new round of studies published in the past two years points strongly to the effectiveness of acetylcarnitine in treating neuropathy. Use of the supplement has been found not only to reduce pain, but also to enhance nerve fiber regeneration. Currently, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has underway a clinical trial of acetylcarnitine as a treatment for NRTI-associated peripheral neuropathy in PWHIV (see article). Other research on acetylcarnitine has suggested its potential benefits in several areas. Improvements in memory and learning capacity, reductions in attention deficits in people with Alzheimer’s Disease, improvements in the vision of those with macular degeneration—the list of studies on this supplement keeps growing longer and more varied. All of which leads us to reflect that research on dietary supplements is a wonderful thing! We realize that studies of nutritional supplements are not likely to be backed by deep-pocketed organizations like the pharmaceutical companies—there’s a lot less money to be made in supplements than in patentable molecules that can be turned into prescription pharmaceuticals. (Kind of makes us think back to how Medieval alchemists obsessed about turning base metals into gold…) Yet it’s great to see how a steadily widening body of knowledge about L-carnitine and acetylcarnitine has produced real benefits for people with conditions like diabetic- and HIV medication-related neuropathy. Let’s just say it makes our day here in the back-office. We strongly advise you to tell your doctor before using these or any other supplements. Please also note that carnitine should not be taken if you have low thyroid activity; conversely, it may help improve hyperthyroid conditions.
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The New York Buyers’ Club is proud to announce that they have joined forces with Gay Men’s Health Crisis (and for those that don’t know that they have been at the very forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS for almost twenty-five years, well - welcome to planet Earth!); we are excited by the opportunity to reach more people with the empowering messsage that yes they can play a greater role in managing their own health and yes, there are complementary and alternative therapies available to them at a fair price. We have started by making ourselves available during the Meals and Wellness Program’s Friday night dinners; we are also are providing pick-up service for those who order supplements from us - either by mail or through our online store - and prefer to pick up their order at GMHC. The New York Buyers’ Club looks forward to expanding our involvement with GMHC and its Meals and Wellness Program in the future.
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 In the 1920s a French microbiologist named Henri Boulard journeyed through Indochina in search of a heat-resistant yeast that could be used to ferment beverages at temperatures above 70° Fahrenheit. When he happened to observe the local population using a tea brewed from litchi fruit skins to combat diarrhea during a cholera epidemic, he was intrigued, and eventually managed to isolate the yeast responsible for this health benefit. Since this original microbiological detective work, Saccharomyces boulardii (yes, Henri named the creature after himself!) has been commercialized, first in Europe after World War II, and more recently in the USA as well. It has been studied for many decades as a means to control diarrhea, and has shown very good results for a variety of conditions: Clostridium difficile, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Crohn’s disease, travelers’ diarrhea, and antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Your gut is normally home to billions of bugs (intestinal flora), which play a significant role in breaking down food and allowing the digestive tract to absorb nutrients. You could say that Saccharomyces boulardii is a “friendly bug,” an introduced species that allows you to restore and maintain a good working set of intestinal flora in your gut. As it aids digestion, Saccharomyces boulardii can also relieve the bloating and gas that often go with microbial imbalance. Further research has also highlighted this yeast’s ability to repair the mucous membrane lining the intestinal walls and to strengthen immune function in the digestive tract. NYBC stocks Florastor®, a freeze-dried form of Saccharomyces boulardii that does not need to be refrigerated and has a shelf life of three years. Florastor® is resistant to all commonly-used antibiotics (except anti-fungals), and so it can be taken along with antibiotic treatment to keep intestinal flora in balance. It’s also worth noting that, with a history of use spanning more than 50 years, Saccharomyces boulardii has an excellent safety record for all ages, including children. One caution, especially important for people with HIV: if you have persistent, serious diarrhea, it’s important that you get an accurate diagnosis of any underlying problem. Simply treating yourself with Saccharomyces boulardii, even if you gain some relief, is not sufficient, since you may be overlookingv a root cause of the condition that needs to be addressed. |
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  The short answer is: yes. ANYTHING can be toxic. Even water! If you drink too much water, you can wipe out your electrolytes. This can cause brain swelling and even death (as happened to some soldiers and reported in the J. of Military Medicine). The question comes up because some physicians and community members have expressed alarm at the possibility that micronutrients can be toxic, particularly to the liver. Yes, it’s true that vitamins and minerals can be toxic. Nonetheless, we’re obliged to balance legitimate concerns in this department with the many decades of publications showing so much benefit from supplementing with vitamins and minerals. Please don’t throw out your multivitamin (or other supplements) just yet! Happily, there is independent science to help answer the question “HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?” One way to look at it is the no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL), defined as the “greatest concentration or amount of a substance, found by experiment or observation, which causes no detectable adverse alteration of morphology, functional capacity, growth, development, or life span of the target organism under defined conditions of exposure.” Got that? Many studies have found that the vitamins and minerals in quite potent multi formulas are very safe, with little likelihood of causing side effects. The biggest concerns are the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K), as these may have an impact on liver function. So for people on liver-toxic meds and/or with chronic hepatitis, high doses of these may be worrisome. The good news is that vitamins D and E are not so troublesome, with fairly high levels required to cause a problem. Perhaps the biggest worry is Vitamin A. While most of the stuff in the NYBC Custom Multi is in the water-soluble beta-carotene form, a hefty 7500 IUs of A (IU= international unit, a standard measure) is also included. Is this too much? By some measures, it may be, since there is a published NOAEL of 3,000mg per day for Vitamin A. To keep under that safety limit, you should take only about four Custom Multi pills per day (not the suggested nine). However, given that HIV is often associated with Vitamin A deficiency, six to seven tablets would probably be fine. Indeed, many of us feel the Custom Multi Vitamin A dosage, even for people with liver disease or on liver-toxic meds, is fine, because it’s provided together with all the other nutrients needed to keep it in balance. (Of course, we’d love to have more clinical data to explore this widely-held view!) For now, to address concerns about Vitamin A toxicity, observe this caution: stop taking the multi immediately if you experience nausea and vomiting, blurred vision, or bone pain. (These may be symptoms of many other conditions, but one way to know if they’re linked to the multi—is to stop taking the multi!) The good news is that a lot of people have been using these multis and Added Protection for years with no liver trouble that we’ve heard reported at either NYBC or our predecessor, DAAIR. That’s not definitive proof of course which is partly why we feel it is important to raise the issue: forewarned is forearmed! We know that iron can be hard on the liver, which is why NYBC offers a formula without iron. Too much selenium is very toxic, but the level at which concern arises is much above that in the Custom Multi (400 mcg). While this amount is higher than is sometimes seen even in potent formulas, it is there for a reason: people with HIV tend to have significant selenium deficiency. Indeed, NYBC’s Custom Multi was designed around known nutrient deficiencies associated with HIV infection. It’s hoped that levels provided in the multi can help offset the damage done by HIV to gut function, absorption, and blood levels of these nutrients, which are critical for health and survival. For more information, please see these AIDS Community Research Initiative of America (ACRIA) web pages: The Role of Dietary Supplements in HIV and a breakdown of Vitamins and Minerals as related to those with HIV/AIDS. |
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 If you’re interested in nutritional supplements as they’re currently used by people with HIV, HepC, and other health concerns, here are some websites to check out:GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis) offers a site rich in practical suggestions and easy-to-understand overviews of how people with HIV can use good nutrition and nutritional supplements to help stay healthy over the long run. Topics include: General Wellness; Women’s Health; Side Effects of HIV/AIDS and Medications; Dietary Supplements & Herbs; Food & Water Safety; and Recipes: gmhc.org/health/nutrition.html More valuable information can also be found at FIAR.us, the website of the Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research (NYBC’s fiscal sponsor) – and don’t forget NYBC’s roundup of online information. To help victims of recent events in the Gulf Coast area, please visit the American Academy of HIV Medicine’s site, www.aahivm.org. With a simple and free registration, you will have access to many organizations in desperate need of your help. The site also allows you to view and post updates. |
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