Research Indicate Herbal Supplements Helps In HIV and TB Treatment

A trend that's gaining ground these days is that of researching various dietary supplements for their safety and efficacy. Recently, a clinical phase II trial of a herb showed promising results in HIV patients who have TB as well.

The Ukranian company Ekomed LLC published the results for the herbals supplement Dzherelo usen on patients who suffered from HIV and tuberculosis. The results revealed that when the herbal supplement is given to TB/HIV patients along with Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) and TB Drugs, the following effects were observed:

● The patients' immune system showed an improvement, with the number of CD4 cells showing an increase.

● The herbal supplement appeared to decrease the chemical driven liver damage due to Antiretroviral Therapy (ART).

The results have been published in the June 2008 issue of the journal International Immunopharmacology.

Dzherelo, the herbal supplement is extracted from various plants grown in Ukraine. These plants have traditionally and safely been consumend as food or for medicinal purposes for hundreds of years.

AIDS and Tuberculosis (TB) are two of the most damaging diseases around the world. Given the safety record of the herbal supplement, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine approved its use in 1997. And till now Dzherelo has been used by about 500,000 people.

Herbal supplements are a type of dietary supplements. Dietary supplements, are sometimes also known as food or nutritional supplements. Many types of these supplements can be found today such as weight loss supplements, fibre supplements, amino acid supplements, etc. The purpose of these vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids etc, is to make up for the deficiency of these nutrients in person's diet.

Today a lot of people use dietary supplements, for instance, in 2004 about US$ 20.3 billion worth of dietary supplements were sold in the US. These included vitamins, minerals, herbals supplements, sport nutrition and various other supplements.

Clinical trials such as these raise hopes of finding alternative remedies for many diseases.