News (Updated February 19,
2006)
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Maternal multivitamin supplements containing vitamins B, C and E reduce the risks of motor developmental delays in infants born to HIV-positive mothers in developing countries, according to a study in Tanzania, Africa.
These findings support current recommendations to give multivitamin supplements, in addition to an anti-retroviral treatment, to HIV-1-infected pregnant women in developing countries, note the authors of the study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics.
Supplement administration has already been associated with delays in HIV progression and reduced complications such as low birth weight, preterm birth, and fetal death.
The team of researchers, led by Dr. Nuala McGrath from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, set out to determine the relation between maternal multivitamin use and the mental and motor development of 327 children born to HIV-1-positive mothers.
A population of HIV-1-infected women received daily doses of either vitamin A alone, a multivitamin regimen of vitamins B1, B2, B6, niacin, B12, C, E and folic acid, both supplements combined, or placebo. The treatment lasted throughout pregnancy and continued for 18 months after delivery.
Their results indicate that a multivitamin supplement (B, C and E without A) had significant positive effects on motor scores, as assessed by a validated index.
The observed increase of 2.6 points in the average motor index of a population translates into a 35 percent reduction of the number of individuals who would require greater educational resources, medical care, and other social supports, the authors write.
These effects were variable across subgroups and children born to women with advanced disease appear to benefit the most from multivitamin supplements.
The team also found that the multivitamin regimen offered significant protection against motor developmental delays (relative risk 0.4), but did not affect mental scores significantly.
Vitamin A, on the other hand, was not associated with a change in either mental or motor function, nor did its combination with the multivitamin supplement improve mental or motor development scores.
SOURCE: Pediatrics February 2006.
Thu Feb 16, 2:07 AM ET
Africa's biggest generic drugs maker, Aspen Pharmacare, has signed a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY - news) to manufacture and distribute a version of the U.S. firm's HIV/AIDS treatment Atazanavir/Reyataz, the group said on Thursday.
Aspen said in a statement that the deal showed the South African-based group is positioned at the "cutting edge" of anti-retroviral treatments for the developing world.
"It is indicative of Aspen's ability to align itself with one of the world's leading companies in an attempt to solve what has largely become an African based problem," Aspen Chief Executive Officer Stephen Saad said in a statement.
Reyataz/Atazanavir is a once-daily protease inhibitor, a second-line treatment for AIDS for patients who stop responding to the first-choice drugs. Protease inhibitors help suppress the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
Local agriculture officials are upbeat about a German study showing that a sunflower plant could be used in new drugs to fight the disease that causes AIDS.
Scientists at the University of Bonn discovered the link while they were looking at antifungal properties the sunflower uses to fight off sclerotinia, a disease commonly known as white mold.
Brady Vick, a chemist for the USDA's sunflower research unit in Fargo, said the results come from reputable scientists who have a tradition of finding natural chemicals to treat diseases.
"It's exciting for the Germans, they're the ones who discovered it," Vick said Monday. "It's kind of a surprise announcement. I don't know how they made the connection."
The findings could help promote further research and marketing for the crop, said Larry Kleingartner, executive director of the National Sunflower Association in Bismarck.
"It's very preliminary, quite frankly," Kleingartner said. "We are checking within different levels of Washington to see if there's potential for some accelerated research on this."
Sunflower groups spend about $500,000 a year on research to fight white mold, he said. It also affects soybeans, canola and edible beans.
"It's interesting to see this very complex plant disease as a potential source of medicine for a very difficult human disease," Kleingartner said.
White mold cost farmers more than $100 million in 1999 and 2004, Kleingartner said. It can show up in the roots during growing season or infect the head during cool and wet weather in late summer.
"It can wipe out a whole field within a couple of days," Vick said.
The antifungal substance used in the AIDS drugs is also found in the artichoke and wild chicory. Researchers said it would be cheaper to make the drug from the sunflower plant.
"It's important to note that the apparent HIV antiviral compounds identified in the Bonn study occur within the sunflower plant, not the edible seed or oil of sunflower," Kleingartner said. "However, we already know that sunflower seed and oil have proven nutritional and health benefits unrelated to the defense chemicals within the plant that it uses to defend itself against fungal diseases."
Officials at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., were not immediately available for comment.