improvements in the gut damage that would result in reduced gut leakage of bacteria and less inflammation.
Possible benefits of mineral supplementation?
Patients with low levels of serum zinc were randomized to receive supplementation with zinc gluconate at either 45mg/day or 90 mg/day. After 4 months, the supplementation with zinc led to reduced levels of inflammation in the body because the chemicals that promote inflammation had been reduced.
These chemicals involved in inflammation have been linked to the development of cardiovascular disease, the risk for metabolic disease and other complications of HIV. Importantly, these chemicals remain at higher levels than normal in HIV patients even when they are controlled on HIV medicine. Zinc supplementation should be studied to determine if complications of inflammation in the body are reduced over time.
More studies are needed to determine how valuable these interventions are. Any changes you plan to make should be discussed with your medical providers. In the next article, I will present some new drugs that target HIV and may be very powerful in combination with the treatments we currently have.
Dr. Crawford has over 25 years of experience in the treatment of HIV. While at Howard University School of Medicine, he worked in two HIV-specialty clinics at Howard University Hospital. He then did clinical research as a visiting scientist with the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He served as the Assistant Chief of Public Health Research with the Military HIV Research Program where he managed research studies under the President’s Emergency Plan for AID Relief (PEPFAR) in four African countries.
He is currently working in the Division of AIDS in the National Institutes of Health. He has published research in the leading infectious diseases journals and serves on the Editorial Board of the journal AIDS. Any views and perspectives in his articles on blackdoctor.org are not representative of any agency or organization but a reflection of his personal views.