NEWS POST: More Herbal Cures For HIV Validated

Researchers have found that water-based extract of bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) could be used as adjuvant in the management of people living with Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Can a combination of local herbs including bitter leaf, bitter kola, lemon, lemon grass, Moringa, Gardonema mushroom and Neem tree provide the elusive cure for Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)? Chukwuma Muanya, Assistant Editor, The Guardian (Nigeria) examines indigenous plants that have shown antiviral properties and could be used to boost immunity against not just HIV but cancer and other immune-compromised conditions.

Nigerian researchers have found that water-based extract of bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) could be used as adjuvant in the management of people living with Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

A recent study on the immunological effect of Vernonia amygdalina leaf extract and immunace® (nutritional supplement) on HIV-infected patients taking highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) found that it could serve as a nutritional supplement in an HIV-infected or immuno-compromised condition such as cancer or diabetes patients.

The study published in Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine concluded: “The aqueous extract of Vernonia amygdalina (bitter leaf) and immunace or both have the immunological effect on HIV-infected patients. Therefore, we suggest that the V. amygdalina extract or immunace or both could be used as adjuvant in the management of HIV/AIDS clients.”

The study was conducted by researchers from the Department of Pharmaceutics, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Enugu State; Department of Chemistry, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria; and Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

The result of the study showed that the mean absolute CD4 count (a marker of the immune system) was increased in the client who took the extract or supplement. And the clients who took both the extract and supplement had a greater increase in the CD4 count. The increased CD4 was significant as compared with the control group. The skin rashes were also improved in the entire groups.

Also, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) have endorsed some herbs and spices that have shown promise in treating the opportunistic infections associated with the viral infections without side effects.

They have verified the efficacy of garlic (Allium sativum), ginger (Zingiber officinarum), cloves (Syzigium aromaticum), thyme, cayenne, basil, Aloe vera, Neem tree (Dogonyaro/Azadiratcha indica), lemon (Citrus limon), lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) in the treatment of opportunistic infections associated with the HIV/AIDS.

A Neem-based product has received United States (U.S.) patent, “US 20070275085 A1”, as compositions and methods for the cure of HIV/AIDS.

Also, Nigerian researchers led by a professor of pharmacognosy at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Chief Executive Officer of Bioresources Development Group (BDG), and former Chairman of the Independent Election Commission (INEC), Prof. Maurice Iwu, have validated local foods such as bitter kola, coconut oil, bitter leaf, Moringa oleifera, Sour sop, the mushroom Garnoderma lucidum, among others as immune boosters and for the treatment of HIV.

Also, another group of researchers have in clinical trials demonstrated how poly herbal preparations made predominantly with bitter leaf provide cure for chronic form of hepatitis B and C co-infection, cancer, type 2 diabetes, tuberculosis and HIV. The researchers from Halamin Herbal centre, 10 George Innih Crescent, Apo District, Abuja and Department of Histopathology and Cytology, Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) Jos found that poly herbal preparations with bitter leaf as the active ingredient strengthen the immune system through many cytokines and chemokines regulations.

Other constituents of poly herbal preparations include: Sesamum indicatum (sesame), bitter leaf, Aloe barbadensis (popularly known as aloe vera), Saccharum officinarum (sugar cane), Allium sativum (garlic) and Amaranthus caudatus (green amaranth, inine in Ibo, tete abalaye in Yoruba).

The poly herbal preparations include: SAAAB and HAABS dietary supplement for hepatitis B and C, and HIV; SAABFAT 7 for cancer and HIV; TABSAABS for tuberculosis and HIV; and DAABS-2 for type two diabetes.

The researchers led by a leading researcher in plant extracts and natural medicine and pharmacist, Dr. Ben Amodu, have shown that there is a cure for the chronic form of hepatitis B and C. Amodu and his team of researchers have in recent clinical trials shown that the poly herbal preparations could be used to treat prostrate cancer and ‘bad’ cholesterol.

Result of laboratory tests by Image Scan Diagnostic Centre Maitama District, Abuja, showed that a patient with abnormal Prostate-specific antigen, or PSA per milliliter (ng/mL) of blood of 6.9; was reduced to reduced to PSA of 0.41ng/ml of two months of regular use of the poly herbal preparation as well as reduced the total cholesterol level from 250 mg/dl to 156 mg/dl.

A 2016 paper by João S. Teodoro et al, on “Mitochondria as a Target for Safety and Toxicity Evaluation of Nutraceuticals”, noted that the multiple pharmacological activities of kolaviron from Garcinia kola (bitter kola) could be due to its ability to prevent and/or repair mitochondria damage.

Another study published on journal Phytomedicine has validated the treatment of oral thrush in HIV/AIDS patients with lemon juice (Citrus limon) and lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus) and gentian violet.

The researchers noted: “Though the patient population was small, the use of lemon juice and lemon grass for the treatment of oral candidiasis in an HIV population was validated by the randomised controlled trial.”

Indeed, researchers have validated anti-HIV properties of Garnoderma lucidum. The study published in the journal Phytochemistry is titled “Anti-HIV-1 and Anti-HIV-1-Protease Substances from Ganoderma lucidum.” The Japanese researchers wrote: “Ganoderiol F and ganodermanontriol were found to be active as anti-HIV-1 agents with an inhibitory concentration of 7.8 mg ml1 for both, and ganoderic acid B, ganoderiol B, ganoderic acid C1, 3b-5a-dihydroxy-6b-methoxy- ergosta-7,22-diene, ganoderic acid a, ganoderic acid H and ganoderiol A were moderately active inhibitors against HIV-1 PR with a 50 per cent inhibitory concentration.” Also, scientists have in another study published in African Journal of Biotechnology found that extracts of Moringa oleifera showed inhibitory activity against early steps in the infectivity of HIV-1 lentiviral particles in a viral vector-based screening.

The researchers noted: “Moringa oleifera (Moringaceae) is one of the many medicinal plants employed by herbalist to treat or manage people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in African Traditional Medicine (ATM) and there are many claims to the fact that it improves quality of life and reverses the course of the HIV/AIDS disease progression.

“In this study, M. oleifera leaf extracts showed potent and selective inhibition of early steps in HIV-1 infectivity and could serve as source of anti retroviral lead molecules.

The outcome of this investigation could partly explain the benefits and improvement in quality of life claimed by PLWHA in the use of this medicinal plant as supplement.”

Iwu told journalists in Lagos last week that his team at BDG has formulated these local food items into scientifically validated medicines, dietary supplements. BDG is comprised of Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme (BDCP), Bioresources Institute of Nigeria (BION), Intercedd Health Products (IHP), Intercedd Laboratories (IL), BioTrade Global Agency and Nature’s Emporium.

Iwu said these foods or rather plant extracts have been formulated foods that can be used as medicines or rather dietary supplements for persons living with HIV/AIDS include among others: Moringa Tea, Moringa Leaf Tea, Moringa Whole Seed, which have been shown by research to cure over 300 diseases; Vernonia Ocimum Tea from bitter leaf and scent leaf (Ocimum gratissimum) also used for the control of blood sugar and weight management; Garcinia-IHP from bitter kola (Garcinia kola) also used as antimicrobial and detoxifier; IHP Virgin Coconut Oil from coconut as stress buster and immune booster; Erovit-IHP, which combines the anti-ageing properties of the mushroom, Cordyceps, the high-potency antioxidant effects of Punica granatum fruits and the life enhancing Korean ginseng; Immunovit-IHP from Reishi mushroom, Punica granatum and Korean ginseng to boost immunity against diseases; and Ganoderma Coffee and Ganoderma Green Tea.

Has Halamin Herbal Centre found a cure for HIV/AIDS in its bitter leaf-based poly herbal preparations? Amodu said: “As it is, it will not be proper to project the message that we have cure for HIV/AIDS. We don’t want to send any info to the outside world for anybody to think that we want to jump the gun. What we have can be subjected to further study, and we are uniting with NAFDAC to do that. So at this point, I don’t want to lay claim that I have cure for that. But, what the whole world recognized today is functional cure, and we can beat our chest that we have that cure. Functional cure as described by New York Times. What is functional cure? It is a state whereby an HIV/AIDS client has an increase immune system, decrease or no opportunistic infections and has loss no man-hour (can do his work without help from another). This is exactly that our herbal supplements do; our supplements are at par with the conventional Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART)…”

Originally published in The Guardian Nigeria

GUEST BLOG POST(S): Ditching Gadgets May Boost Creativity — Trevor Stokes & Why Your Problem-Solving Skills May Sharpen with Age — Stephanie Bucklin

Credit: Family walk photo via Shutterstock

By Trevor Stokes

To boost your brain's creativity, take a hike, according to new research. But consider leaving the electronic gadgets at home.

Backpacking for four days in the wilderness without toting a laptop, iPhone or other high-tech device increased the creative problem-solving skills of people by 50 percent.

The study volunteers included 30 men and 26 women (whose average age was 28) who participated in Outward Bound, a group that runs leadership expeditions for young people and adults across Alaska, Colorado, Maine and Washington.

Before the hikers went on their merry way, 24 of them took a creative problem-solving test. Then, four days into the hike, the remaining 32 took the same test. The test, known as the Remote Associates Test, is commonly used to assess creativity by measuring how people associate different words. For example, the researchers asked the hikers to identify a word that is connected to beans, golf and envy. The goal of the test-takers was to come up with the word "green" on their own, with no time limitation. Before the hike began, participants answered an average of four out of 10 questions correctly. Those who took the test after four days of hiking correctly answered six of the 10 questions. While a difference of two correct responses may not seem like a lot, the 50 percent improvement is meaningful and statistically significant. "This is not a small effect. This is a bases-loaded home run in terms of its effect size," said study author David Strayer, a psychology professor at the University of Utah.

The beneficial effects of nature on the mind have been known anecdotally for generations, perhaps most famously noted by author Henry David Thoreau. He spent two years living a rustic life by Walden Pond and published "Walden," his back-to-nature account, in 1854. 

Previous research has shown that exposure to nature replenishes basic brain functions like attention span, but little has been known about higher-level thinking properties, such as those involved in solving complex problems. The current study is the first measure of nature's influence on creative problem-solving, Strayer said.

"Nature seems to be one of the most effective ways to put one's mind at ease and enhance creative thinking by setting aside worries," Strayer said.

Stimuli from trees, streams, birds and the wind are softer than the jarring sounds of car horns, cellphones and other accoutrements of modern life.  As result, people aren't as distracted. And that enhances creativity, Strayer said.

Benjamin Baird, a graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara who has researched the effects of distraction on creativity, agreed.

"It is good, strong, very interesting work and a very interesting finding, but it will require some important follow-up to realize its full potential," said Baird, who was not involved in the study. Nature, he noted, may not have had as large an influence as thought. "It may well be that some of the effects have to do with interacting with a group of people over a period of time," Baird said. Plus, the hikers took the test in very different environments, which could have influenced the test results.

"It would have been nice to have had another group that had returned from a hike perform the task in an identical environment in the laboratory to see whether there was still an effect," Baird said.

Future research from Strayer will include measuring specific brain activities and stress hormones during hikes to determine how interactions with nature might affect how the brain functions.

"There's some concern that being in a modern urban environment with horns and technology constantly depletes nature's restorative properties," Strayer said. His advice: If you're going to go on a hike, don't bring your iPhone or cellphone. "Instead, try to focus on being in the environment you're in."

The study appeared (Dec. 12, 2012) in the online journal PLOS ONE.

Pass it on: A walk in nature can help boost your ability to creatively solve problems.

Why Your Problem-Solving Skills May Sharpen with Age — Stephanie Bucklin

Why Your Problem-Solving Skills May Sharpen with Age

By Stephanie Bucklin

You may get better at creative problem solving as you age, new research suggests.

Researchers reviewed more than 100 studies on problem solving and aging that were conducted from 1960 to 2016, looking at both data on people's behavior and evidence from brain scans. The scientists found that, generally, older adults' ability to focus and avoid distraction was not as strong as that of young adults' — but that this in turn may help older adults to perform better on some creativity and problem-solving tasks.

The researchers were surprised at the strength of the findings that a lowered ability to focus and avoid distraction could improve people's performance on tasks that require creativity, said Lynn Hasher, a co-author of the paper and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. This is especially surprising, she said, because the ability to focus "has previously been seen as a basic requirement for success in learning," she told Live Science.

The ability to focus does help people with some specific, goal-driven tasks, such as reading, the researchers said. For example, one study included in the review showed that, while reading, older adults were slowed down more than younger adults by the presence of certain words that were added to a passage in order to distract a reader. In addition, older adults had more trouble than younger adults in recalling key information they had read when distractors were present, according to that study, which was published in 2012 in the journal Experimental Aging Research.

However, the ability to focus does not help — and may actually hinder — people's performance on tasks that require broader attention, Hasher and her colleagues concluded. For example, in a 2016 study, published in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, researchers gave participants a test in which they were shown pictures of faces with names superimposed over them. Although the study participants were instructed to ignore the names, the researchers tested the people on which names they remembered. 

Surprisingly, older participants were better at matching the faces to the names than the younger participants were, even though memory for faces and names tends to decline with age.

Another study, published in 2006 in the journal Psychology and Aging, similarlyfound that adults ages 60 to 75 had a better memory for "distractors" than young adults ages 18 to 30 did. In this study, participants looked at drawings with "distractor" words superimposed over them. Again, although the participants were instructed to ignore the words, the researchers tested them on whether they remembered the words. Results showed that the older participants outperformed their younger counterparts.

Together, these studies suggest that although young adults may be better at disregarding distracting information, they later have poorer recall of this information.

The researchers concluded in their review that older adults' "broader scope of attention" is better suited for tasks that require integrating larger amounts of information — such as solving problems in creative ways, or recognizing patterns over time — rather than tasks that require a narrower focus.

An area of the brain called the frontoparietal region is associated with focus, processing relevant information and disregarding distracting information, the researchers said. Evidence suggests that, as people age, this region's activity decreases, which may contribute to the reduced ability to focus and avoid distractions, the researchers said. However, this decrease in activity may allow older adults to draw on a broader range of knowledge to come up with creative solutions to problems.

For example, a 2005 study published in Brain found that participants with a single brain lesion in the front of the brain (as determined by a CT or MRI scan) were better at solving a creative math problem than participants who had no lesions in their brains. While 82 percent of those with the lesion could solve the problem, only 43 percent of participants with no lesion could do so.

The authors of the review noted that more research is needed to show whether a reduced ability to focus and weed out distractions affects everyday behavior. In addition, the boundary between older and younger adults is not concrete, and was not specifically defined in the review.

Of course, people's ability to focus doesn't depend only on their age. A positive mood, lack of sleep and consumption of alcohol can all contribute to a general lack of focus and increased distraction, so there may be more than one avenue to achieve better problem-solving, the researchers said.

Originally published (STORY 1) on Live Science and and (STORY 2)  on Yahoo News.

GUEST BLOG POST: The Secret Of Immigrant Genius — Eric Weiner

Illustration: Skip Sterling

Having your world turned upside down sparks creative thinking

By Eric Weiner

Scan the roster of history’s intellectual and artistic giants, and you quickly notice something remarkable: Many were immigrants or refugees, from Victor Hugo, W.H. Auden and Vladimir Nabokov to Nikolas Tesla, Marie Curie and Sigmund Freud. At the top of this pantheon sits the genius’s genius: Einstein. His “miracle year” of 1905, when he published no fewer than four groundbreaking scientific papers, occurred after he had emigrated from Germany to Switzerland.

Lost in today’s immigration debate is this unavoidable fact: An awful lot of brilliant minds blossomed in alien soil. That is especially true of the U.S., a nation defined by the creative zeal of the newcomer. Today, foreign-born residents account for only 13% of the U.S. population but hold nearly a third of all patents and a quarter of all Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans.

But why? What is it about the act of relocating to distant shores—voluntarily or not—that sparks creative genius?

When pressed to explain, we usually turn to a tidy narrative: Scruffy but determined immigrant, hungry for success, arrives on distant shores. Immigrant works hard. Immigrant is bolstered by a supportive family, as well as a wider network from the old country. Immigrant succeeds, buys flashy new threads.

It is an inspiring narrative—but it is also misleading. That fierce drive might explain why immigrants and refugees succeed in their chosen fields, but it fails to explain their exceptional creativity. It fails to explain their genius.

Recent research points to an intriguing explanation. Several studies have shed light on the role of “schema violations” in intellectual development. A schema violation occurs when our world is turned upside-down, when temporal and spatial cues are off-kilter.

In a 2011 study led by the Dutch psychologist Simone Ritter and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers asked some subjects to make breakfast in the “wrong” order and others to perform the task in the conventional manner. Those in the first group—the ones engaged in a schema violation—consistently demonstrated more “cognitive flexibility,” a prerequisite for creative thinking.

This suggests that it isn’t the immigrant’s ambition that explains her creativity but her marginality. Many immigrants possess what the psychologist Nigel Barber calls “oblique perspective.” Uprooted from the familiar, they see the world at an angle, and this fresh perspective enables them to surpass the merely talented. To paraphrase the philosopher Schopenhauer: Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Freud is a classic case. As a little boy, he and his family joined a flood of immigrants from the fringes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Vienna, a city where, by 1913, less than half the population was native-born. Freud tried to fit in. He wore lederhosen and played a local card game called tarock, but as a Jew and an immigrant, he was never fully accepted. He was an insider-outsider, residing far enough beyond the mainstream to see the world through fresh eyes yet close enough to propagate his ideas.

Marie Curie, born and raised in Poland, was frustrated by the lack of academic opportunities in her homeland. In 1891, at age 24, she immigrated to Paris. Life was difficult at first; she studied during the day and tutored in the evenings. Two years later, though, she earned a degree in physics, launching a stellar career that culminated with two Nobel prizes.

Exceptionally creative people such as Marie Curie possess many traits, but their ‘openness to experience’ is the most important. Photo:Ullstein Bild/Getty Images

Exceptionally creative people such as Curie and Freud possess many traits, of course, but their “openness to experience” is the most important, says the cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman of the University of Pennsylvania. That seems to hold for entire societies as well.

Consider a country like Japan, which has historically been among the world’s most closed societies. Examining the long stretch of time from 580 to 1939, Dean Simonton of the University of California, writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, compared Japan’s “extra cultural influx” (from immigration, travel abroad, etc.) in different eras with its output in such fields as medicine, philosophy, painting and literature. Dr. Simonton found a consistent correlation: the greater Japan’s openness, the greater its achievements.

It isn’t necessarily new ideas from the outside that directly drive innovation, Dr. Simonton argues. It’s simply their presence as a goad. Some people start to see the arbitrary nature of many of their own cultural habits and open their minds to new possibilities. Once you recognize that there is another way of doing X or thinking about Y, all sorts of new channels open to you, he says. “The awareness of cultural variety helps set the mind free,” he concludes.

History bears this out. In ancient Athens, foreigners known as metics (today we’d call them resident aliens) contributed mightily to the city-state’s brilliance. Renaissance Florence recruited the best and brightest from the crumbling Byzantine Empire. Even when the “extra cultural influx” arrives uninvited, as it did in India during the British Raj, creativity sometimes results. The intermingling of cultures sparked the “Bengal Renaissance” of the late 19th century.

In a 2014 study published in the Creativity Research Journal, Dr. Ritter and her colleagues found that people did not need to participate directly in a schema violation in order to boost their own creative thinking. Merely watching an actor perform an “upside-down” task did the trick, provided that the participants identified with the actor. This suggests that even non-immigrants benefit from the otherness of the newcomer.

Not all cultural collisions end happily, of course, and not all immigrants become geniuses. The adversity that spurs some to greatness sends others into despair. But as we wrestle with our own immigration and refugee policies, we would be wise to view the welcome mat not as charity but, rather, as enlightened self-interest. Once creativity is in the air, we all breathe a more stimulating air.

—Mr. Weiner is the author of “The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places, From Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley.” 

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal