Garlic interferes with HIV drug.Garlic has mythological as well as real protective properties, but it also has a newly discovered downside. Garlic supplements interact negatively with an HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. drug, according to Stephen C. Piscitelli of the biotech firm Virco Lab in Rockville, Md., and his colleagues in private and federal labs. One of the three drugs in standard HIV therapy is a protease inhibitor protease inhibitor (prō`tē-ās'), any of a class of drugs that interfere with replication of the AIDS virus (HIV), by blocking an enzyme (protease) necessary in the late stages of its reproduction. , which prevents infected cells from producing new copies of the AIDS virus. The researchers gave the protease inhibitor saquinavir saquinavir /sa·quin·a·vir/ (sah-kwin´ah-vir) an HIV protease inhibitor that causes formation of immature, noninfectious viral particles; used as the base or the mesylate salt in treatment of HIV infection and AIDS. to HIV-free volunteers. During periods of the trial when the participants received garlic supplements, the concentration of saquinavir in their blood fell sharply. That's a troubling result, the researchers say, because in HIV-infected patients taking garlic supplements, the drug's effects would be muted. The findings appear in the Jan. 15 CLINICAL INFECTIOUS DISEASES Clinical Infectious Diseases in an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press which publishes articles on the pathogenesis, clinical investigation, medical microbiology, diagnosis, immune mechanisms, and treatment of diseases caused by infectious agents. . --B.H. |
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