PROPOLIS - POSIBILA CURA PENTRU SIDA (AIDS)

How Bees Produce a Possible Cure for AIDS

In This Issue: * Did You Know ...?  * Featured Topic:  Growing Old is Now Optional -- Not Inevitable * A Word from Our Sponsor:  New Video Presentation:  11 Breakthrough Cures from Around the World Did You Know... ... that propolis kills the HIV virus that causes AIDS?      Propolis is a sticky resin that honey bees collect from tree buds, bark, sap flows, or other botanical sources.  It is used to varnish the cells of the honeycomb, and as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive.      This natural substance that costs only pennies has been shown to kill the virus responsible for one of the world's deadliest and most tragic diseases.  Furthermore, this germicide from the bees also blocks the HIV virus from entering into cells.  HIV treatments that block cell entry of the virus are rare and sought after due to the HIV's mounting resistance to available drug treatments.      The study that proved propolis fights HIV was published in The Journal of Ethnopharmacology in 2005, but the research started 5 years before that -- by accident -- when Genya Gekker was working as medical researcher at the University of Minnesota.       Gekker's research team was testing various substances against the HIV virus when she happened to come down with a cold.  Back home in her native Ukraine, Gekker treated colds with propolis, a popular remedy in Eastern Europe and South America.  Throughout the world for thousands of years, people have valued the healing power of propolis, now proven by a number of human and animal studies as effective against burns, minor wounds, infections, inflammatory diseases, dental pain, and genital herpes.  People have applied propolis against a long list of other ailments, too, including:      ==> Ulcers      ==> Fungal infections      ==> Acne      ==> Cancer      ==> Itching      ==> Tuberculosis      In the Ukraine, propolis is as widely available as aspirin or Echinacea are in the United States.  But 10 years ago in Minnesota, Gekker had to search for  propolis, finally finding some at a local farmer's market where beekeepers sold honey.  With a little alcohol, Gekker extracted a propolis tincture.  As her sniffles improved, Gekker was struck by a powerful realization.  Her research team had never tested propolis against HIV! Gekker set up the trial, and amazingly, it worked.  Propolis killed HIV.  After dozens of successful lab trials testing propolis against HIV, Gekker wrote up the remarkable results with an international team of researchers led by Dr. Phil Peterson.  Peterson said that propolis had been studied in the past, but not for its power to fight HIV. The propolis lab trials that started with Genya Gekker's cold went on for about 3 years.  "It was difficult work," said Peterson.  Difficult, but exciting.  Every single propolis sample the team tested killed HIV in lab cultures and appeared to inhibit HIV's ability to enter cells.  "HIV attacks the microglia of the brain -- that's where the virus grows when it gets in the brain cells," explained Peterson.  "Its other main targets are T-lymphocytes, specialized white blood cells that affect immunity.  And we found, lo and behold, that when you put this propolis in a cell culture system, it has potent activity against the virus in both microglia and T-lymphocyte cell cultures."      Despite this amazing research and its follow-up since 2005, an FDA-approved drug is still years away.  First, researchers would have to identify and isolate the exact active HIV-inhibiting component or components in propolis.  With at least 300 and possibly as many as a thousand components in propolis, isolation isn't easy or quick.  Researchers would also need to solve the issue of batch variability.  The challenge of batch variability arises because bees collect propolis from different trees in diverse regions of the world!      However, even as the gears of medical research grind onward, everyday consumers can already reap the benefits of this wonder substance powerful enough to kill HIV in lab tests.  Propolis has become much more widely available in recent years -- in lozenges, sprays, chewing gums, creams, ointments, and, of course, in its raw state from the beekeepers.  Propolis is also endorsed as a home remedy by an increasing number of well-known doctors, including Dr. Andrew Weil.      Best of all, propolis is an inexpensive, natural substance.  "We know that of the 40 million or so people affected by the HIV virus, 90% of them are living in the developing world, where they can't afford retroviral drugs at $10,000 a year," said Peterson.  "Propolis, by comparison, is available for pennies.  And it's been used with relative safety for medicinal purposes for 5,000 years, since Biblical times at least, all over the earth.  We know it has activity against many bacteria, fungi, viruses -- it's a warehouse of antimicrobial activity.  Because of propolis, a beehive is one of the most sterile places on earth.  I have much greater respect for bees than I ever did," he said. "They're very clever beasts." = = = = = = = = = = = Featured Topic:  Growing Old is Now Optional -- Not Inevitable Shangri-La is a fictional paradise described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton.  It is a mystical valley in the Himalayas -- and people who live there are almost immortal ... living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance.      For the first time in man's age-old quest for the fountain of youth, something has the potential to extend maximum human lifespan ... and come close to creating a modern day Shangri-La.       Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in 2009 for discovering a technology that is proven to slow down the aging process and even reverse it, thereby enabling one to grow younger!  This is the greatest breakthrough in the history of anti-aging medicine and has the power to alter a human being's genetic clock and extend life indefinitely.      The 3 scientists stumbled upon this anti-aging technology just 10 years ago.  They found a hidden switch in every cell of the body that controls how long a person lives . . . and when that person will die.       In utter astonishment, they watched how -- with this hidden switch turned on -- generation after generation of cells multiplied . . . without aging.      As one top researcher put it in a Harvard report, "With this switch turned on, these cells become 'immortalized'."       Prior to 2007, no one knew how to activate that switch.  Now, thanks to the pioneering work of the 3 Nobel prize-winning scientists, the world has a mechanism for activating it. How Does It Work?      Telomere biology is at the heart of this anti-aging phenomenon -- and it is being hailed as the most dramatic advance in the world of life extension.  Elizabeth Blackburn, an Australian-born American biological researcher at the University of California, San Francisco is the world's most famous telomere biologist.  Telomeres are the "caps" at the end of chromosomes that protect the chromosomes.  Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that rebuilds the telomere.  For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine, together with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak.      The telomere is the part of your chromosome that controls aging.  Every time your cells divide, your telomeres get shorter.  And when your telomeres finally get too short, your cells die a "genetically pre-programmed" death ... and life comes to an end.      The enzyme called telomerase, which was discovered by the 3 Nobel prize-winning scientists, is in every cell of your body but is often turned off.  Telomerase makes your telomeres longer.       A biotechnology company based in Menlo Park, California, has recently developed a telomerase activator agent derived from the Chinese astragalus plant.  The telomerase activator is a concentrated nutrient that helps prevent your telomeres from shortening -- and in some cases, it actually lengthens telomeres.  That means your cells could actually become biologically younger