A Lizard can cure HIV/AIDS? Hoax or not?

Recently, there is a rumor in Indonesia that a lizard can cure HIV/AIDS. This rumor is spread from mouth to mouth. Is this just a hoax or not?

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome is caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), this virus will infect our immune system thus make our immunity become weaken, can't encounter infectious agents. Until now, scientists especially in developed countries haven't discovered the cure for AIDS. The Latest invention is Anti Retro Viral (ARV) to limit virus spread or replication in our body, but can't eradicate the virus. Also until know, there is no vaccine for HIV, because the virus is highly mutability.

Eventhough ARV drugs can't cure the disease, but for who has HIV/AIDS, ARV is needed to slow the disease progression. And make their life depend on ARV. Issues in AIDS also a sensitive thing. There is a group of people that don't want AIDS to have a cure. Because if AIDS has a cure, there will be an increase in free sex, drug abused. That will further breakdown human morality and spirituality. How about you?
It is up to you, everyone has own argument about that issue.

Because of clinical progression of the disease, person who has HIV usually depressed, stressed, and so being expelled from community. They are weaken not only immune but also mind and mental. So, they also need our supports.

Many rumors about cure for AIDS from having sex with teenagers, God's Crown fruit, and the latest one is a lizard ,especially Tokek. Just like other rumors about cure of terminal disease, it becomes phenomenal sensations and easy to spread.

We don't know from who or where this rumor began. Tokek is used to be a cure for skin diseases, asthma, typhus, and prevent aging. And the price for each tokek is around US$10-20.
When the rumor a tokek can cure AIDS occurs, the price increase significantly becomes US$250 each ons, and can reach US$ 10000 for bigger size. And people in my country begin to hunt tokek.
Tokek is believed can increase our immunity, whether it effective for AIDS is unknown.


Traditional Medicinel
Until know, there is no evidence that a tokek (lizard) can cure AIDS, and recently because of the rumor, tokek is under studied by WHO.
About God's Crown fruit (Mahkota Dewa) has been studied by scientist that this fruit contain high level of antioxidant that help to slow the progression and minimize symptoms in AIDS, but doesn't eradicate the disease itself.

Indonesian people are easier to believe traditional medicine that use plants, stones, and animals eventhough there is no evidence about its benefits, because of the cultural background of indonesian people.


Conclusion
I don't state that traditional medicine is bad, but we should use evidence to decide.
But according to phylosophy of Eastern medicine that more emphasize on empirical, while Western medicine more emphasize on logical, A treatment maybe irrational but empirically proved.

Whether, it is hoax or not, we better wait for scientific evidence about it.

*source: http://www.healingrosacea.com/

Melatonin: the Sleep Hormone that Prevents Cancer

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland. When it gets dark at night, melatonin levels rise, making you sleepy, then fall in the morning when you are exposed to light. During the 1990s, mental health investigators found a link between seasonal depression and light exposure. People living in high latitudes which exposed them to less light during the winter had a higher incidence of depression, compared with those living closer to the Equator. It was hypothesized that persistent high melatonin levels from the night led to depression. As a treatment, patients were given light visors in the morning. It did not work so well, until it was discovered that actually only the shorter wavelengths of light -the blue and the blue-green (aqua)- were effective in signaling the pineal gland to turn off melatonin secretion.

The aviation medicine community picked up on this, rather quickly, and began studying different colors of light, in terms of effectiveness in telling the pineal gland to turn off in the morning. Meanwhile, epidemiological studies revealed a striking association between sleep and cancer. Women suffering from cortical blindness (unable to see anything) were shown to have half the breast cancer rate as sighted women. At the same time, women such as nurses, factory workers, and flight attendants, who worked "graveyard shifts", had double the risk of developing breast cancer, compared to women who did their sleeping at night. In epidemiology, such strong associations between a behavior and a disease are very rare. Only smoking, or having several first-degree relatives with breast cancer, put women at higher risk for breast cancer compared with exposure to light at night.

During the last decade, new studies have found associations between exposure to light during the night hours and cancers other than breast cancer, for women, men, and children. The working hypothesis, which I suspect will be proven correct within a few years, is that the advent of electric lighting at night is one of the major reasons why the cancer rate has increased substantially during the last 100 years. The reason for this is melatonin. This hormone, which puts us to sleep, is a powerful anti-oxidant and cancer preventive agent. Results of in vitro and in vivo studies, suggest that melatonin helps the immune system to eliminate neoplastic cells, before cancer takes root.

What can you do about this? First of all, sleeping in complete darkness is very important. If your bedroom is not dark, wearing a sleeping mask keeps your melatonin levels high throughout the night. Interrupting the darkness, however, for example by turning on a bathroom light, even for a few minutes, can turn off your melatonin for an hour or more! That’s why for many people it’s difficult to go back to sleep after getting up to go to the bathroom.

The good news is that the very same studies which taught investigators how to use blue and aqua light in the morning to turn off melatonin led to other studies teaching us which kind of light prevents melatonin from being turned on at night in the first place (or for that matter turning it off in the middle of the night, if you get up and turn on a light). It is not the entire visible light spectrum, but just the blue to aqua range, as illustrated in this picture. This means that  you don’t need to walk around in the dark in the name of health. You simply need to filter out the blue to green part of the light spectrum. Do this, you can go about your normal activities, even into the late hours of the night, without inhibiting your pineal gland from secreting the melatonin that helps you to sleep soundly, while helping to prevent cancer as well!

*source: http://factoidz.com/

Scientist uncovers secret of nerve cell regeneration

Washington, Feb 20 (IANS) Brain researcher Hiroshi Kawabe has uncovered the secret of nerve (brain) cell regeneration.
It is the working of a process that permits nerve cells to grow and form complex networks—something had been completely overlooked until now.

The study shows that an enzyme controls the structure of the cytoskeleton (cellular skeleton) and ensures that nerve cells can form the tree-like extensions that are necessary for signal transmission in the brain.

Nerve cells form complex extensions called dendrites (from Greek 'dendron’ meaning tree), to be able to receive signals from billions of other cells.

The growth of dendrites takes place mainly during late embryonic and infantile brain development. During this phase, dendrites, stretching hundred of k1ilometres, end to end, grow from the 100 billion nerve cells in our brain.

The result is a highly-complex network of nerve cells that controls all bodily functions - from breathing to complicated learning processes.

In fact, a large number of signal processes control the direction and the speed of dendrite growth by influencing the structure of the cytoskeleton, which is inside the growing dendrite and responsible for its shape and extension.

Göttingen-based brain researcher Hiroshi Kawabe has now discovered exactly how the growth of the cytoskeleton is controlled during the dendrite development.

Using specially bred genetically engineered mice, Kawabe, who conducts research at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine, discovered that the Nedd4-1 enzyme is essential for regular dendrite growth.

Nedd4-1 is an enzyme that usually controls the degradation of protein components in cells by combining them with another protein called ubiquitin.

The cell identifies these ubiquitinated molecules as “waste” and degrades them. In some cases, however, the ubiquitination does not lead to the degradation of the marked protein but changes its function instead.

Hiroshi Kawabe has now shown that the Nedd4-1 enzyme ubiquitinates a signal protein called Rap2, and thus prevents it causing the dismemberment of the cytoskeleton and the collapse of the dendrites.

“As long as Nedd4-1 is active, the nerve cell dendrites can grow normally,” said Kawabe.

“In its absence, the dendrite growth comes to a standstill and previously formed dendrites collapse, with dramatic consequences for the function of nerve cell networks in the brain.”

There are, however, probably a number of parallel operating signal paths which control the dendrite growth. This explains why nerve cells can also form dendrites without Nedd4-1 - albeit significantly fewer in number and shorter.

The Nedd4/Rap2/TNIK mechanism would then be only one of several that can partially compensate each other, said a Max Planck release.

*source: http://www.thaindian.com/