Built To Survive: A Comprehensive Guide to the Medical Use of Anabolic Steroids, Nutrition and Exercise for HIV(+) Men and Women
by Michael Mooney & Nelson Vergel

Real Life On the Cover
On the cover is an HIV(+) man who had lost weight and his overall health as he progressed towards death. He is healthy now and is the personal trainer of co-author Nelson Vergel, who had also begun to experience a severe decline in his health as his weight dropped to 140 pounds. Nelson weighs a healthy 190 pounds now. (His picture is on the back cover.) This book details the approach we use to help HIV(+) people improve their health.

Integrative Medicine And Nutrition For HIV: Replacing Yang Energy

The book's approach is integrative medicine. It addresses building or rebuilding health and well-being using a combination of progressive nutrition, dietary supplements, exercise and hormone replacement to increase lean body mass (LBM) and improve immune function. This supports and improves the effects of conventional medical treatment. When testosterone, the body's primary yang hormone declines, the fighters in the immune system, the T cells (yang), also decline, and the body cannot defend itself. This is the energetic essence of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Nutritionally acquired immune deficiency syndrome (NAIDS) also decreases the immune system's defenses. Replacing yang energy and nutrients improves immune response and overall health in HIV. Combined with exercise, they also improve lean body mass (LBM), and studies show that LBM is directly associated with better long-term healthy survival in HIV.¹

Fact
In 1995 The World Health Organization determined that loss of LBM was the number two leading cause of death in AIDS. LBM is the body's primary storage tank for the amino acid L-glutamine, an amino acid that is required to make T cells. Glutamine also supports yang energy. This book integrates progressive nutritional and hormonal support for yang energy, while not discounting the appropriate use of standard AIDS drugs. We find that most HIV(+) people cannot do an exclusively "all-natural" approach and survive. They do best by taking what works from both standard and alternative medicine. This is integrative medicine.

Orthomolecular Nutrition
The chapter called Orthomolecular Nutrition on page 86 is the one that anyone interested in natural health care, whether HIV(+) or HIV(-), may find most interesting, but you should also read the first chapter, Nelson's Story, to learn why the book was written, and how we developed our integrative approach. There are 107 scientific references for this chapter.

Reducing Diabetes and Insulin Resistance
A new problem in HIV is the development of insulin resistance and Type II diabetes. These two closely-related problems can be caused by the use of the newest AIDS anti-viral drugs, which have been reducing the rate of death in HIV. The chapter on page 41 called Complementary Treatments for Lipodystrophy details an integrative medical approach to reducing these problems using several complementary elements of our program. There are 66 scientific references for this chapter.

Holistic Nutrition and Dietary Supplements Build Immune Health,
Improve Survival and Help AIDS Drugs Work Better With Less Toxicity
Studies show that progressive nutrition and dietary supplements build well-being, improve immune function and reduce opportunistic infections in HIV. Studies also show that dietary supplements can reduce the toxic side effects of some of the effective AIDS "cocktail" medicines, like the protease inhibitors.² (See: Vitamins Help Ritonavir Go Down" on page 101.)

Recommendations for dietary supplements to improve immune health begin on page 102. This chapter detail how nutrients like carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, glutamine, N-acetyl cysteine, omega-3 fats (EPA), acidophilus, silymarin, DHEA, and specific vitamins and minerals can dramatically improve health and reduce infections in HIV, with full documentation from the scientific literature.

The book provides 346 medical journal references because we are working to change conventional medicine's perception of natural health care. The University of Illinois at Chicago book review confirms our success. It said, "It is a book for the individual but also a highly recommended book for all medical, academic, and public libraries." http://www.uic.edu/depts/lib/aidsbkrv/No60.html#1045

All profits from the sale of this book are donated to fund a non-profit facility that serves 300 HIV(+) people and does clinical research to publish studies on our integrative medical approach.

The book is available from a variety of different sources, including book stores, health food stores, Amazon.com and other internet sites, and HIV buyer's clubs around the U S.

References:
1. Kotler, et al. Magnitude of body-cell-mass depletion and the timing of death from wasting in AIDS. Am J Clin Nutr (1989) 50:444-447.
2. Gatti, et al. ICAAC Conference (Abstract A-75)