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Yogurt probiotics help restore gut health in HIV patients
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In the June issue of Nature Medicine is a news feature which describes a pilot project called Western Heads East (WHE) based out of the University of Western Ontario in Canada. This project takes place in Mwanza, Tanzania, a Sub-Saharan east African country bordered by the Indian Ocean, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. The country of Tanzania saw its first cases of HIV/AIDS in 1983 and today there are approximately 1.4 million people living with the disease. The WHE project was established in 2004 and sends university students to remote communities each year to teach the local women how to make yogurt with scientifically developed probiotics. The program serves two purposes; first it empowers the women of the community, known as “yogurt mamas”, by enabling them to provide economically for their families and second it provides extra nutrition to the community, especially for those infected with HIV.
Studies have shown that in HIV positive individuals, probiotics can improve immune cell counts, alleviate diarrhea and lower the risk of HIV transmission. Shortly after HIV was identified as the infectious agent that causes AIDS, researchers noticed that the gastrointestinal tract of infected individuals was a site of significant early HIV replication and destruction of CD4+ T cells (an important part of the immune system which attacks infections in the body) which caused damage to the intestine’s mucosa lining.
Investigators with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases propose that the destruction of the immune cells allows bacteria to cross over that “leaky” lining of the intestine into the blood stream which activates a process that possibly accelerates the progression from HIV to AIDS. Animal studies have shown that the probiotics found in yogurt can repair the destroyed lining of the intestine and may prolong the health of HIV infected persons.
Probiotics may also protect HIV-infected persons from other infections caused by microbes native to the gastrointestinal tract, such as E. coli. In health persons, there is a well maintained balanced between “good” and “bad” bacteria, which may become unbalanced during HIV infection. The probiotics work by competing with pathogenic bacteria for nutrients and release antimicrobial substances.
Transmission of HIV infection increases in cases where a common vaginal infection known as bacterial vaginosis is present. Studies have shown that when delivered in combination with antibiotics, probiotics have a cure rate of 90% for bacterial vaginosis, compared to a 50% cure rate for antibiotics alone.
The work in Mwanza, Tanzania is currently being done on a small scale. Communication problems and lack of a qualified work force to produce the product make delivering the yogurt in larger numbers difficult. However, the impact these women are having is manifesting itself ten fold in that now they are taking significant steps to change the course of HIV/AIDS is their communities by spreading the message of prevention and treatment to their peers.
Yogurt, developed at Brescia University College in collaboration with
the Canadian R&D Centre for Probiotics, was named "Fiti",
a Swahili term that symbolizes health and well being.
Photo Source: Western Head East Project Site
For more info: Tanzania Commission for AIDS
HIV InSite University of California San Francisco Center for HIV Information, 10/2007
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