WELLNESS STARTS WITH AWARENESS - CD8 T cells - The Body
WELLNESS STARTS WITH AWARENESS - CD8 T cells - The Body
WELLNESS STARTS WITH AWARENESS - CD8 T cells - The Body
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peutic dose range that should be helpful<br />
to you with this condition.” So that’s the<br />
purpose of these programs. To give people<br />
specific information about chronic<br />
disease, side effect management when it<br />
comes to using traditional supplements.<br />
That’s our main outreach that we do.<br />
JB: Do you have a mail order service<br />
for people like me who live outside of<br />
Texas?<br />
FW: We do, www.houstonbuyersclub.<br />
com. We ship pretty much everywhere.<br />
JB: If you had to list the top five<br />
supplements for people with HIV,<br />
what would they be?<br />
FW: I would say number one, a potent<br />
multivitamin. <strong>The</strong> top mistake people<br />
make with multivitamins is they are hypnotized<br />
by the words “one-a-day.” And<br />
there is no such thing as a potent one-aday<br />
multivitamin for people with HIV.<br />
If you’re going to do a multivitamin you<br />
have to do several, several times a day. My<br />
favorites are Superblend by Super Nutrition<br />
and the K-Pax [KaiserPax] by Jon<br />
Kaiser [M.D., an HIV specialist in San<br />
Francisco]. Those are my two favorites.<br />
<strong>The</strong> second thing I would do is NAC, and<br />
that is a supplement that helps to increase<br />
gluthathione levels. It’s very good for the<br />
liver. <strong>The</strong> third one is fish oils, even if you<br />
don’t have high cholesterol or high triglycerides.<br />
Fish oils are real important for<br />
skin and other things in the body. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
help reduce inflammation. That’s probably<br />
my biggest thing, the inflammation<br />
part. <strong>The</strong> other would be if you’re taking a<br />
high potent multivitamin you should add<br />
the selenium, but a lot of our HIV diets<br />
don’t take the recommended amount of<br />
multis. Those are the top three.<br />
If people are taking HIV drugs they<br />
have to take Coenzyme Q10, because<br />
what happens is that the drugs go into<br />
the body, as they’re winding their way<br />
through the cave with their guns drawn<br />
waiting to shoot at the HIV viral <strong>cells</strong>, by<br />
the time they walk up to a dead body they<br />
say, “Oh no, that wasn’t an HIV viral cell.<br />
That was a mitochondria.” And so Q10<br />
helps to protect the mitochondria, and if<br />
you don’t protect the mitochondria in the<br />
body then you start opening yourself up<br />
to all kinds of organ and liver issues.<br />
“Oh, how could I forgot this one. You<br />
know what we’re seeing a lot of, Jeff, and<br />
you’re not going to believe this. Actually<br />
PA • September / October 2008 • tpan.com • positivelyaware.com<br />
Positively Aware<br />
it’s getting a lot of press locally because<br />
Baylor University is studying this, but…<br />
green tea capsules. We are seeing more<br />
and more people who are doing two<br />
grams a day of green tea capsules and<br />
their T-<strong>cells</strong> are going up between 40 and<br />
100%. Dr. Christina L. Nance is studying<br />
that at Baylor and we see that here, and<br />
today I was watching a local television<br />
show and of all days for you to call, there<br />
was a show on about food as medicine and<br />
they talked a lot about HIV, and one of<br />
the things they talked about was green tea<br />
liquid. <strong>The</strong>y mentioned that it was being<br />
studied locally for HIV. So we’re not the<br />
only one on the soapbox about this. We’ve<br />
seen amazing results with that.<br />
JB: Could you give me some numbers<br />
for dosage?<br />
FW: Oh, yeah. NAC is a 500 mg tablet<br />
and people take anywhere between a<br />
1,000 and 3,000 mg a day. If you’re taking<br />
HIV meds, take two grams twice daily of<br />
fish oil.<br />
JB: Any specific kind?<br />
FW: Yeah, I’m so glad you asked. Always<br />
make sure it says filtered against PCB<br />
and heavy metal. <strong>The</strong>re’s a lot of that in<br />
fish and you want to make sure it’s filtered<br />
properly. And the second thing is, don’t buy<br />
your fish oils in a non-health food store<br />
environment. And the reason I say this is<br />
because in these warehouse retail places,<br />
the fish oil labels that are on the bottles<br />
are misleading to people with HIV. A lot<br />
of times they would put “serving size—two<br />
gel caps,” and most people read the label<br />
and they assume it’s one gel cap. So you’re<br />
thinking you’re getting 2,000 mg of fish oil<br />
in one gel cap and you’re not. <strong>The</strong> second<br />
thing they’re doing is… a quality fish oil<br />
will have broken down the two major ingredients<br />
in a fish oil, which are known<br />
as EPA and DHA. A quality health food<br />
store like Whole Foods or Houston Buyers<br />
Club will only stock brands that have those<br />
broken out. Warehouse and chain store<br />
pharmacies don’t. And so people with HIV<br />
are not getting the right dosage unless they<br />
know how to read a label. <strong>The</strong>y are not getting<br />
as good as they should be getting.<br />
For the Q10, anywhere between 100–<br />
300 mg a day. <strong>The</strong> reason why the range is<br />
so wide on that is that it is the most expensive<br />
supplement on the market and some<br />
people can only afford to take a hundred<br />
milligrams.<br />
JB: Are there resources for people to<br />
help them pay for supplements?<br />
FW: Well, we have a very limited program,<br />
but for most people it would be either<br />
local Ryan White programs, which<br />
are places like AIDS Foundation Houston,<br />
and some other clinics. [Editor’s<br />
note: Houston Buyers Club has a program<br />
that offers free supplements to individuals<br />
who qualify, based on donations they<br />
receive from manufacturers. Visit www.<br />
huostonbuyerclub.com, click “Programs,”<br />
then click “Ellen’s Hand.”]<br />
JB: Why have you remained successful<br />
while some of the other buyers clubs<br />
have shut down over the years?<br />
FW: I think for two main reasons.<br />
Number one, most people in charge of<br />
buyers clubs did not know it was going to<br />
grow like it did and so most people, whenever<br />
they start a non-profit, they start it<br />
from a mission of heart, and they give the<br />
store away. If you can’t afford it, they give<br />
it to you. And unless you have a steady<br />
stream of funding in place—that’s what<br />
I’ve seen happen. I have to say we were<br />
lucky because we had a royal bitch and I<br />
say that tongue-in-cheek because she was<br />
really a good friend. She was a bitch to me<br />
and said, “If you give the store away today<br />
you will not be here tomorrow. No! You<br />
may not give this away to so-and-so. You<br />
will charge them a reduction in price, but<br />
you will not give this away.” And so I relied<br />
on her gut and her counsel a lot and<br />
to be honest, if I had not relied on her we<br />
may not be here today.<br />
JB: Would that be Ellen?<br />
FW: Yes! Ellen. [Editor’s note: Read<br />
more about Ellen in “Facing Up to It,” November/December<br />
2004.]<br />
<strong>The</strong> other reason was that we did something<br />
different that I don’t think anyone<br />
else has done yet. We had an opportunity<br />
to jump to a retail space in a retail center<br />
and that’s what saved our ass. We got the<br />
general public to come in here and start<br />
shopping, so it would support our programs.<br />
We went from one thousand dollar<br />
days to three or four thousand dollar days.<br />
So that’s what helped.<br />
By the time this goes to press, all of our<br />
[information on how to deal with] side effects<br />
should be online—Lark Lands put<br />
them together. e<br />
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