© 2007 New York
Buyers' Club, Inc.
A Non-Profit Organization.
All Rights Reserved.
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Supplement: The Newsletter of The New York Buyers' Club is freely available to all:
To join our mailing list and receive a print version, please contact us via email.
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Vitamin C is one of the most important supplements for people living with chronic conditions. Unfortunately, its water-soluble properties mean that it all-too-quickly passes through our bodies - a situation compounded by nutrient malabsoption - commonly found in HIV-positive people. Our Vitamin C supplement utilizes a chelated version of Vitamin C - wherein it is bound to other, less-soluble mineral compounds (namely, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and potassium), which cause it to stay in the body longer, thereby providing greater benefit - something we find, well - super. Which is why we have changed the name of this product from the drab "C Mineral Ascorbates" to the more apropos NYBC Super C.
Note: The following is adapted from the New York Buyers’ Club Self-Care Guide.
Vitamin C is very effective as an antioxidant, antiviral, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory. White blood cells are dependent upon vitamin C for normal functioning and it is known to speed wound healing. It also appears to have a protective effect against many forms of cancer and, of particular interest to women living with HIV, against cervical dysplasia. Non-HIV studies have shown that women have a 2.5 times greater risk of developing cervical dysplasia if they take less than 1.5 times the RDA of vitamin C. Since levels of C are known to drop during any infection, the risk to HIV-positive women is obviously serious. Because the cells lining the anal area are similar to those lining the vagina, it is also thought that low levels of C could increase the risk of developing anal dysplasia. Both men and women with HIV infection appear to be at increased risk of developing anal cancer.
Low levels of Vitamin C have also been shown to cause gum disease, a condition that is very prevalent in people with HIV. Supplementation with vitamin C has been shown to decrease the permeability of the gums, blocking bacteria and toxic substances from entering the inner tissues and preventing gum deterioration. Vitamin C is also protective against toxic chemicals, having the ability to neutralize many of these in the body and prevent the damage they might otherwise cause.
It is well known that vitamin C is suppressive against many other viral infections and may help prevent infections like colds and flus that might otherwise activate HIV. Vitamin C is also a very powerful antioxidant, providing significant protection against oxidative stress in the bloodstream. For all these reasons, long-term supplementation with vitamin C may be one of the most important things people with HIV can do to protect their bodies against oxidative stress and support body-wide health. Because individual needs vary widely, recommended dosages range from 1,000 to 6,000 mg or more daily (with doses spread across the day and taken with meals). Note that amounts in excess of individual tolerance can result in gas and diarrhea; if you develop sudden watery diarrhea when you begin or increase a vitamin C dose, know that this may be the cause.
Summer is a time when many people’s diets shift to lighter fare, and ripe fruits and vegetables are in abundance. Some of the richest sources of vitamin C include t oranges, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, cantaloupes, and papayas - and salad staples such as green and red peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, and sprouts.
Now Available from the NYBC Members Store:
NYBC Super C Each bottle, 180 1000mg tablets.
Regularly $15.95 - ON SALE NOW! JUST $6.00!
Suggested Use: Take three or more sustained release tablets per day with food. NYBC Super C is a highly bioavailable form of vitamin C connected to calcium, magnesium, zinc and potassium. Since vitamin C is water soluble and processed very quickly by the body, it is embedded in this pharmaceutical grade matrix to slow its absorption, thus making it available to the body for up to four hours.
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Introducing The Supplement Formerly Known As... NYBC's C Mineral Ascorbates now prefers to be called by the more befitting moniker, NYBC Super C. Same great sustained-release formula, sassier new name!
SUPPLEMENT: Newsletter of the New York Buyers’ Club is published bimonthly and features articles focusing on current items of interest (policosanols and cholesterol control, for example), brief reviews of individual supplements and their uses (such as whey proteins), and information about upcoming NYBC education and outreach events.
SUPPLEMENT is distributed free of charge: NYBC members receive the current newsletter with every order shipped to them. All content is also archived on our website.
If you wish to receive copies of SUPPLEMENT: Newsletter of the New York Buyers’ Club by mail or email, please let us know by emailing us, calling us at 718-573-8123, or writing to us at NYBC,75 Varick St., Suite 1404 Ð DC 1707, New York, NY 10013.
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I participated in the recent UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) as a member of “Civil Society” (UN-speak for citizens of the world). This session was supposed to expand upon, and re-commit to, the Declaration of Commitment (DoC) produced in 2001. It is unprecedented in UN history to address a disease like this, but we’re talking about a global pandemic that will soon be one of the worst in human history. Already, 25 million men, women and children have died. Some 40 million are infected.
The original DoC was not a binding document, but contained many lofty goals: access to testing, prevention, and treatment for people with HIV worldwide. Vulnerable populations were identified for special concern: women, girls, prisoners, injection drug users, males who have sex with males, and commercial sex workers. Prevention was to include needle access and harm reduction, overcoming barriers to discussing sexual issues, access to and awareness of how to properly use latex condoms and lubricant. Treatment was to include nutrition, clean water, treatments for opportunistic infections, and antiretroviral (ARV) therapy.
To measure successes and failures, the original DoC set goals with timelines. Indeed, the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM), the UN’s main pot of money for its fight against AIDS, has been beset with problems, some of its own making but others due to a shameful lack of US leadership.
Unfortunately –and criminally– the U.S. delegation did its best to water down the new declaration, allying itself with Islamic states and the Vatican. No surprise, considering the disdain with which the Bush administration regards the UN and other international bodies. (Think of the appointments of UN critic John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN, and Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of preemptive warfare, to head the World Bank.) Similarly, when Bush called for billions for AIDS in the past, he bypassed the UN’s Global Fund and set up his own unilateral program that serves far fewer countries, even as it promotes nonsense notions like “abstinence only” and restricts poor countries’ access to generic ARVs. While it does some good by getting more people on ARV and training healthcare workers, the parallel Bush program has destabilized UN efforts and left them woefully under-funded. The US delegation has also done damage by opposing harm reduction, any special attention to vulnerable populations, or the relaxation of drug patent rights.
The US delegation did meet with “Civil Society” before the final draft was produced. They heard us—but ignored us. Peculiarly, at one session the US delegation included a representative from the pharmaceutical company Gilead. That figures—Donald Rumsfeld has been on the board of Gilead, so it’s just more cronyism and profiteering, as with Halliburton in Iraq or no-bid contracts after Katrina. The Bush Gang won’t support the UN Global Fund because the UN plan won’t shovel enough cash into the hands of Big Pharma.
On a positive note, the final document included language about access to adequate nutrition (while leaving out clean water—too much profit in privatizing water, I suppose). In one session, I argued for access to a multivitamin/mineral, which we know can slow HIV disease progression by 30% and reduce morbidity and mortality. In addition, such access might encourage more people to test earlier because they would have a safe and effective intervention available (and one that could get them psychologically ready for ARV.)
I also had the opportunity to chide the South African Minister of Health, who failed to mention ARV in his presentation. I pointed out that no one I knew relied on a multivitamin alone for HIV treatment and that nearly every person with HIV winds up needing ARV. I urged rejection of the denialism that has led South African officials to refuse to accept HIV as the cause of AIDS, and also refuse to accept ARV treatments.
On Friday, First Lady Laura Bush gave a revolting little speech. She gabbled about the marvels of Bush’s AIDS Fund, and called for a day of testing. I wonder if she and W will get tested? I wonder if they have a clue about why people in Russia, Gabon or Egypt might not want to get tested when a positive result means at the very least intense stigma and discrimination, and, at the worst, a death sentence because they cannot afford treatment?
One thing is certain. The result of this abject lack of US leadership guarantees that millions more children, women and men will die of AIDS in the coming years. And new infections will undoubtedly begin to rise.
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Coenzyme Q 10, or CoQ10 for short, is widely found in body tissues, where it acts as a key player in the production of energy for cell growth and maintenance. It also works as a powerful antioxidant, that is, it can “mop up” potentially harmful byproducts of normal metabolism and restrain damaging processes like inflammation.
When CoQ10 was first identified and studied in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was much interest in it because lower than normal levels of this molecule were found to be associated with various cancers. As understanding deepened, CoQ10 was seen as stimulating the immune system and increasing resistance to disease, and theorized as an adjuvant therapy (treatment given after primary treatment) for cancer. Later, it was also shown to have the specific ability to protect the heart from damage caused by a chemotherapy drug (see SUPPLEMENT online for further reading).
In the 1970s, research turned to CoQ10’s potential for addressing cardiovascular conditions. Its effect on hypertension (high blood pressure), myopathy (weakening of the heart muscle), and congestive heart failure was examined, with at least some benefit detected in many (but not all) studies. Today, heart health concerns are probably the leading reason that people take CoQ10. In Japan, it’s been an approved treatment for heart failure since 1974.
Quite recently, a clinical trial found CoQ10 effective in slowing progression of early-stage Parkinson’s disease. This kind of finding suggests that we haven’t heard the last word on CoQ10, and that, furthermore, it could prove interesting even outside the area of cardiovascular concerns. As with many dietary supplements—we wish we knew more!
For people with HIV/AIDS, nutritional supplements expert Lark Lands has recommended use of CoQ10 in the context of broad-spectrum antioxidant therapy that includes carotenoids, selenium, vitamin E, vitamin C, lipoic acid, and NAC. But we should note that Dr. Jon Kaiser, who has conducted studies of vitamin/antioxidant supplementation and people with HIV, concluded a couple years back that CoQ10 gave little added value compared to other antioxidants. So, the stronger recommendation for use of this supplement may be limited to those concerned about cardiovascular issues.
NYBC stocks several other supplements of interest to people dealing with cardiovascular conditions, including pantethine, fatty acids (Evening Primrose and DHA Max), and policosanols. Check out descriptions in our online store catalog, and in our Catalog and Treatment Guide.
CoQ10 Advisories and warnings: CoQ10 is fat soluble, and so is better absorbed if taken with olive oil or the like. Take with vitamin E, since the two work together. It also may affect levels of diabetes drugs, statins, and other prescription meds—another reason to be sure to tell your doctor if you are using this supplement. Suggested dosages can be high, 200mg to 800mg/day, making this supplement an unfortunately expensive proposition.
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Here are a couple of items that crossed the NYBC news desk recently. As usual, there’s news to worry about—and then there’s the tidbit that makes you sleep a little easier, because it’s about the difference creativity can make, and also summons up those proverbial hopeful glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel.
The first is a review from the May 15, 2006 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, which reports that kidney disease associated with HIV or HIV meds is becoming more common. This is a typical story from recent years: yes, the meds are working, and people are very often thriving on them—yet there can also be treatment side-effects that need attention. Furthermore, the intricacies of HIV and its effects are still being unraveled, so it’s no surprise that there’s new research needed to understand the exact impact of HIV itself on kidney function. Here, we’ll just mention two main points from the review: monitoring is important for tracking and managing HIV-related kidney conditions, and the authors specifically suggest a measure of creatinine-clearance before starting HAART, and continued monitoring as treatment goes on.
This standard measure of kidney function, as you’d expect, will give your care providers a good indicator to follow, and so increases their ability to ward off trouble. Second: the review talks about metabolic changes caused by some HIV treatments, and especially about diabetes and hypertension, which often end up having an impact on the kidneys. If you’ve been checking out SUPPLEMENT in the past eight months, or have dipped into NYBC’s online literature, you’ll know that these two conditions are high on our list of concerns as well, and that we’re very active in stocking supplements that can be of use to people in managing these conditions (see below). As always, let us know if you have questions or suggestions about the use of nutritional supplements for these purposes.
And now for News Brief #2. Some may find this item –shall we say– a bit eccentric? But we’ve always been convinced that while “slow and steady” has its merits, you also just have to throw in the wild card, the imaginative leap. Partly to liven up your day, partly because—well, you never know! So here it is: David Baker, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Washington, has recruited 60,000 people to network their home computers in order to help in massively complex data analysis projects, including the search for an AIDS vaccine. His basic research goal is to figure out how to get the body to recognize essential parts of the virus’ proteins, so that the immune system can respond and suppress HIV. Looking at precisely how individual proteins fold and contort is a monumental computing task, which explains the need for a vast network of individual machines (a lot less costly than a dedicated supercomputer). If you’re interested, he’s still enlisting home computers for his network. Just go to http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/ for more info.
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Available from NYBC:
Kidney UT (MMS Pro).This unique formula for improvedrenal function includes juniper berries, parsley, ginger root, Uva Ursi leaves, marshmallow root, cramp bark, and goldenseal root. Each bottle contains: 100 capsules (465 mg ea.)
SPECIAL CLEARANCE SALE!
Only $3/bottle! (Reg. $7.15!)
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A Note About NYBC Membership...
By becoming a member of the New York Buyers’ Club, you join a growing community
of people empowering themselves through education - and saving money at the same time.
A prime example: sold in retail stores and over the internet for an average of $42/bottle,
NYBC stocks the amino acid supplement Acetyl-L-Carnitine for just $10!
Based on a sliding scale, annual NYBC membership
fees range from $5 to $25. Click here for more information!
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