Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - March 30, 2003
Gill Moodie and Karen Van Rooyen
The vegetable is part of a concoction that Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said last week was the recommended food combination to boost the immune systems of people with HIV.
But a study looking into the African potato, which grows wild throughout the continent, was stopped a decade ago because it was found to damage bone marrow, said Professor Patrick Bouic of the University of Stellenbosch's immunology department.
"An HIV patient's bone marrow is even more susceptible to immune suppression. The last thing you want is to immune-suppress them as that is what the virus is waiting for," he said.
Last week Tshabalala-Msimang told the parliamentary portfolio committee on health that Aids dissident Dr Roberto Giraldo - who questions the link between HIV and Aids - had recommended the combination of garlic, onions, the African potato and virgin olive oil.
This week Tshabalala-Msimang's spokesman, Sibani Mngadi, said the minister was only giving an example of foods suggested by one nutritionist - and his recommendation was still to be evaluated.
Very few substances in the African potato are known, Bouic said. "It's crazy. What scientific puff is she quoting?"
Local experts said this week there was no conclusive research to show that the food combination fought the Aids virus or boosted the immune system.
Leading nutritionist Professor Demetre Labadarios, director of the Nutrition Information Centre of the University of Stellenbosch, said: "Until such time that we have the data to make such claims, it is best to be careful and avoid raising false hopes."
Mngadi said Giraldo had been invited along with members of United Nations agencies to contribute to guidelines on nutrition and HIV/Aids. The government was moving towards providing nutritional support in addition to drug therapies, not as a replacement for them, he said.
But dietician Roy Kennedy, who produced national guidelines in 2001 on nutrition and HIV/Aids for the Health Department, said he could not find research by Giraldo on nutrition.
Kennedy, who works at the Medical University of Southern Africa, said the best nutritional advice for people with HIV was to eat as many different fruits and vegetables as they could afford.
"There are no studies [proving] any specific food is able to fight the virus in the same way that antiretrovirals do," he said.
Garlic is known to fight bacterial and fungal infections and can help to clear up mouth sores and infections such as thrush, common in HIV-positive people.
University of Cape Town Professor Roger Hunter, whose field is synthetic organic chemistry, said: "It doesn't promote the immune system, but it protects the immune system."
However, it has to be eaten raw and in large amounts to have an effect, said Hunter and Kennedy.
Nutritionist Marianne Visser, who lectures at the University of Cape Town, said virgin olive oil would be a good source of energy for HIV-infected people.
However, she was only aware of research into the immune-stimulating potential of fish oil - and that was inconclusive.
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