By Andrew Weil, M.D.
Mark M. knows exactly when he got infected with the AIDS virus and from whom he got it. It was in 1983 from a male sexual partner; the man's previous partner died shortly afterward. One month after this contact Mark became very sick with a skin rash and a mysterious pneumonia that was never identified. He remained very sick for three months, then recovered and has been healthy ever since. In 1985 he tested positive for HIV. At that time his helper T cell count was over 1,000. (Helper T cells are the targets of HIV; as their numbers decline, people become more susceptible to opportunistic infections.) In 1989 his T cell count had dropped to 700.
Since his recovery from the initial infection, Mark has been very conscientious about his health, especially about his diet and mental state. He eats a lot of raw garlic--one head a day, chopped and mixed with food--because he read about garlic's beneficial effects on the immune system. He also eats a lot of hot chile peppers and buys only organically produced food, including some meat and chicken and a substantial quantity of fruits, fruit juice, and vegetables. He takes vitamins, drinks purified water, and walks, swims, and gardens regularly. He lives in a monogamous relationship, works as director of a program that provides counseling for persons with HIV, and creates art objects that he uses in healing rituals. In 1991, Mark's T cell Count was up to 1,300; and when he was last tested, in 1994, it was still 1,300, which is in the normal range.
"The medical professionals gave me six to eighteen months to live when I was first diagnosed," Mark told me when I met him. "Since 1985 I can't tell you how many doctors have shown me the Curve -- that is, the graph showing the percentage of people per year who develop AIDS after infection. They all try to tell me I'm somewhere along it, headed for destruction. This is really Western medicine's fascination with illness. Here I am with normal T cells, in great health, and they have the audacity to tell me I'm on this curve heading for death. When I see doctors now, I tell them right at the start: 'Look, I don't even want to hear about your curve. Just check me out, answer my questions, and keep your opinions to yourself!' They have also all tried to get me to take AZT [the antiviral drug that is conventional medicine's current treatment of choice for HIV], but all of the people I've known who have used it are dead, so I've refused. And none of them have been interested to hear what I'm doing to stay healthy. They pat me on the head and say, 'Whatever you're doing, just keep it up!'
"I have developed an ability not to buy into the medical system and a willingness to accept that I have control over what happens to me with HIV. I am also committed to not being afraid. I use visualization every day to neutralize fear; I've been doing it since I was a kid, because I came from a disastrous family and was subjected to incest and a lot of verbal and physical abuse. Things come up everyday--like a funny spot on my arm recently. I visualized it going away, and it did. It was nothing. I'm also in ongoing psychotherapy. For the past seven years I've used it to keep centered. In my work I act as a healthy role model for persons newly diagnosed with HIV. I counsel them and don't reveal that I'm HIV-positive till later. It's an effective technique. Many of these people, especially as a result of their inter actions with doctors, think they'll die within two years. I'm here to show them it doesn't have to be that way."
I did not have much to tell Mark except to make him aware of some of the Chinese herbal tonics that look promising for keeping HIV in remission.
Comment: With a life-threatening illness for which conventional medicine has no effective treatment, it takes conscious effort to get needed services from doctors (like monitoring of T cell counts) with out taking on their pessimism. One of the most interesting and encouraging features of HIV infection is its tendency to go into a long latent period before it begins to compromise immunity. Conventional therapy centers on chemical weapons against the virus, but these drugs are all toxic and may select for strains of HIV that are less inclined to live in balance with their human hosts. For many years, medical doctors paid no attention to long-term survivors of HIV infection like Mark. Now enough cases have surfaced that researchers are beginning to study them. One possibility is that some of these people are infected with less virulent strains of HIV and may have developed immunity to them (which could help scientists develop an effective vaccine). Many long-term survivors have relied on healthy lifestyles and therapies to support the healing system, such as Chinese herbal remedies. If the latent period of HIV infection could be extended to twenty-five or thirty years, people with the virus might live out relatively normal lives. (They could, of course, still infect others.)
THESE CASE EXAMPLES show how correct decisions about treatment, particularly about whether and how to use conventional medicine, can allow the healing system to resolve a variety of serious health problems. Once you establish the right relationship with the conventional system, your next task is to make wise choices from among the great variety of alternative therapies now available.
If you are Chinese you will recognize this tonic herb at once. Under the name huangqi it is widely sold both singly and in many combination formulas for the treatment of colds and flus. Astragalus is a large genus in the pea family, some species of which are toxic to live stock. (Locoweed of the American Southwest is an astragalus.) But the toxins are only in the above-ground parts, never in the roots, and it is the root of a nontoxic Chinese species, Astragalus membranaceous, that provides the herbal medicine. The plant is a perennial herb with long, fibrous roots, native to northern China and Inner Mongolia. Both wild and cultivated plants are sources of commercial astragalus, which is sold in bundles of thin slices that resemble wooden tongue depressors and have a sweet taste. Chinese herbalists recommend adding these slices to soups and removing them before serving because they are too tough to chew. You can buy dried astragalus in Chinese herb stores, or you can buy astragalus tinctures and capsules in health food stores. You will also find in health food stores many Chinese herbal products that contain astragalus as a principal ingredient.
Traditional Chinese doctors consider this plant a true tonic that can strengthen debilitated patients and increase resistance to disease in general. They also use it as a promoter of other herbs known to increase energy, aid digestion, and stimulate the production and circulation of blood. In contemporary Chinese medicine astragalus is also a chief component of fu zheng therapy, a combination herbal treatment to restore immune function in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. Research in China has demonstrated increased survival in patients receiving both herbal and Western therapies, as well as moderation of the immunosuppressive effects of the latter.
Pharmacological studies in the West confirm that astragalus enhances immune function. It increases activity of several kinds of white blood cells as well as production of antibodies and interferon. These properties have to do with the root's content of polysaccharides, large molecules composed of chains of sugar subunits. Polysaccharides are structural components of many organisms; until recently they did not excite much interest among Western pharmacologists, because they are not the types of molecules that act as magic bullets and because conventional wisdom holds that they cannot even be absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. But polysaccharides are a common feature of many herbal medicines that enhance immunity, so we must not yet understand their properties.
I recommend astragalus to many patients, since I find it to be safe and effective. In particular, I suggest it for people with chronic infectious diseases, such as bronchitis, sinusitis, and AIDS. I also recommend it to many cancer patients, both those undergoing conventional treatment and those who have completed treatment. And I think taking astragalus regularly is beneficial for people who are debilitated, lacking in energy or vitality, or feeling vulnerable to stress. It is easy to find astragalus products in health food stores; follow dosages specified on the labels.
Maitake is the Japanese name for an edible and delicious mushroom, Grifola frondosa, known to mushroom hunters in America as "hen of-the-woods," because it grows in big clusters on the ground at the bases of trees or stumps, clusters that resemble the fluffed tailfeathers of a nesting hen. The Japanese name means "dancing mushroom," possibly because people danced with joy on finding this rare and prized species. Finding a big hen-of-the-woods--they can weigh up to a hundred pounds--can indeed be cause for celebration, not only because it is a huge quantity of a choice wild mushroom but also because it is an eminently salable commodity worth twenty dollars a pound or more. Italians love to cook it in sauces for pasta or pickle it in olive oil and vinegar marinades after parboiling. Unfortunately, maitake in the wild is uncommon, even though it will fruit in the same spot for many years.
In 1965 a master Japanese mushroom hunter wrote: "Top rank hunters are those who seek maitake. They go out to their own secret grounds to spend several days looking for maitake with a dream of for tune at a stroke. Maitake hunters are not supposed to let others know their secret spot. If he finds a spot where he can crop more than 10 kg (7'' lbs) of maitake, he found a 'treasure island.' He would never tell anyone his secret location until he dies. He would only indicate the location in his will to his eldest son just before he dies. Some hunters are even willing to die without telling their own sons or families...."
All this changed in the early 1980'S, when Japanese scientists dis covered how to cultivate maitake on sawdust; the cultivated form is now sold at reasonable prices in supermarkets throughout Japan.
Mushroom growers in this country are just beginning to experiment with it. In cultivation the mushroom looks like a floral bouquet in shades of gray and gray-brown, except, instead of flowers, it is made up of many overlapping, fan-shaped mushroom caps. The undersides are white, with tiny pores instead of gills. Grifola belongs to a family of mushrooms called polypores, distinguished by that kind of spore bearing tissue. In general polypores are nontoxic, but only a few are edible; most are tough and woody, growing as brackets or shelves on dead or living trees. In the West, polypore mushrooms have mainly been of interest to forest pathologists, because they are important causes of heart rot in living trees and important decomposers of dead and dying trees; but in the Far East, many of them are highly esteemed as medicinal herbs, especially in the class of superior drugs, the tonics and panaceas that increase resistance and promote longevity.
Traditional Chinese doctors did not use maitake, but they did use many of its relatives, including a very close relative, Polyporus umbellatus, or zhu ling. Modern testing has shown zhu ling to have anti cancer and immune-enhancing properties related to its content of polysaccharides. Now Japanese researchers have tested maitake for similar effects, with impressive results. In fact, extracts of maitake turn out to be more powerful anticancer and immune-enhancing agents than any of the other medicinal mushrooms tested so far. In combination with chemotherapy, they increase the effectiveness of lower doses of Western drugs, while protecting the immune system from toxic dam age. Perhaps Chinese doctors will begin including this mushroom in their fu zheng therapy. Maitake extracts also show activity against HIV and hepatitis as well as an antihypertensive effect.
Until cultivated maitake turns up in supermarkets here a likely prospect, because the mushroom is not difficult to grow, retains its freshness extremely well, and has a firm texture and good flavor-- you will have to buy tablets and capsules of maitake extracts in health food stores. Several firms are now marketing these products, using material imported from Japan. Prices are high but should come down once cultivation catches on here.
I recommend supplements of maitake to people with cancer, AIDS, and other immune system problems as well as to those with chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic hepatitis, and environmental illnesses that may represent toxic overloads. As soon as fresh maitake becomes available, I will make it a regular addition to my diet.
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