As a cure for AIDS? – A potent new inhibitor of HIV, derived from bananas, may open the door to new treatments to prevent sexual transmission of the disease. This could be especiallyimportant for Africa, where AIDS patients do not have access to costly drugs, but where bananas could be grown (We once thought this fruit was going to disappear, but it’s still going strong). New cures for diseases is one of the fascinating subjects that Anne Strieber discusses with Russell Targ on this week’s Dreamland.
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We all know the way to prevent AIDS, but will there ever by a cure? Amazingly enough, a cure that could replace the expensive drugs that patients now have to take for life might be right around the corner.

Like so many scientific discoveries, this one originally came about by “accident.” There are several previous reports of patients becoming virus-free after being treated for leukemia with a bone marrow transplant. The latest example occurred when a man who had been HIV-positive for 10 years developed leukemia. Since he was given a bone marrow transplant 2 years ago, his AIDS has stayed away as well.
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We know how it spreads, but how did it start? – The arrival of Europeans to sub-Saharan Africa at the beginning of the 20th century may have also been the beginning of HIV. Researchers have now analyzed one of the earliest examples of the virus that has ever been found and traced it to the 1959 Democratic Republic of Congo.
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Who gets it, who doesn’t, and why? – AIDS experts have compelling evidence that some people live with HIV who for years and even decades show extremely low levels of the virus in their blood, never progressing to full-blown AIDS, and remain symptom free even without treatment. And now we think we know one more reason why some people are MORE likely to contract HIV?it’s all thanks to the ancient Romans!
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