Possible Herpes and HIV Connection

Check this out.

Herpes drug may help control AIDS virus
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080911/hl_nm/aids_herpes_dc_1

Excerpt from the article:
'"If you suppress herpes, HIV also goes down," Margolis said in a telephone interview.'

My notes:
Herpes virus can be suppressed by the drug mentioned in the article, but also by reducing consumption of the protein arginine and counterbalancing it with more lysine (a protein). So, to do this without drugs, one can eliminate or drastically reduce these foods high in arginine from the diet:
- red meat
- gelatin (found in Jello products, capsules (used to hold nutritional supplements or drugs), marshmallows, some candy)
- all nuts (sunflower and pumpkin seeds OK)
- chocolate
- protein bars or powders
- watermelon

Combined with taking 1000 to 1500 mg of lysine each day, this really works to suppress herpes, so maybe it would also work to reduce HIV.

I discovered the concept of suppressing herpes by maintaining a certain balance between lysine and arginine by reading Jean Carper's book, "Food - Your Miracle Medicine", the first edition paperback. I bought her second edition but that section of her book had been eliminated in that edition. I thought it a shame that it was eliminated because it has worked for me for several years now to eliminate herpes outbreaks.

If I start introducing foods high in arginine back into my diet, an outbreak occurs. Sometimes I can get away with a very small amount, but only if this happens maybe once a month. The nuts and chocolate seem to have the most effect, but everything adds up. I take 1000mg (sometimes 1500mg) of lysine each day to help counterbalance the arginine.

If you take a lot of supplements in gelatin capsules (like I do) then you have to give up more of the other foods high in arginine. I even eat red meat a couple of times a week (which I should stop doing) but that makes it so that adding a couple of nuts puts me over the top of my arginine limit. A couple of times I tried taking protein supplements that showed on the label that they contained more lysine than arginine, so I thought I would be OK. However, those protein supplements put me over the arginine limit and I had an outbreak. So, it seems like there is a limit for the consumption of arginine and if you go over that limit, your risk for a herpes outbreak goes way up. You end up having to do a juggling act with your diet to avoid reaching that limit.

And surprisingly watermelon increases arginine levels. Check out this article.

Watermelon serves up medically important amino acid
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2007/070321.htm

And the above watermelon article brings up the point that arginine plays an important role in the body. We can't do without it. Wikipedia has an article that includes a list of benefits of arginine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arginine

So, apparently, the herpes and HIV viruses can't do without arginine either. If we have an overabundance of it do the viruses multiply out of control?

Another something to ponder.

Sunny