NO ICING ON THE ARV CAKE? ….part 2
its essential selenium. That is the same way the Ebola virus cause Ebola virus disease and many other viruses cause the diseases they do. How ARVs increase CD4 count has never been explained adequately. ARVs do this much slower than selenium supplements do. Since science is based on both logic and cause and effect, ARVs probably increase CD4 count by suppressing the selenium depleting effect of viral replication, allowing selenium resources to gradually recover. That signals the thymus to increase CD4 production.
So why do most doctors and governments fail to use selenium to help their HIV patients? Why is there no icing on the ARV cake? Just like icing on a cake, selenium therapy is complementary to ARV treatment and improves the therapeutic result. Icing does not replace the cake any more than selenium replaces ARVs. They are complementary. They are much better together.
By 1997 there was enough scientific proof to conclude selenium is quite beneficial against HIV disease, but larger studies were needed. By 2002 over thirty-two medical journal articles explained how selenium helps against HIV. They reported not only does selenium reduce viral replication working as an NF-kappaB inhibitor (NFkBI), it also works as an immune booster increasing CD4.
Despite modern day Dr Panglosses assuring us otherwise, HIV therapeutics are not yet perfect for all. Approximately 5% of AIDS patients never recover adequate immune function. Newer waves of pandemics continue to roll towards shore including Ebola, Zika, Covid-19 and, still out to sea, Covid-25, plus other unimagined ones. The continuing failure of doctors, scientists, governments, and the WHO to address the problem of the uniced cake of HIV therapy is a major setback in our understanding of how to defend humanity from the next viral onslaught.
How many beloved people will not live to blow out another set of candles due to viral pandemics? As the poet Bob Dylan sang, “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.”
Howard Armistead is the Director of the Selenium Education and Research Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.