Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Thursday, July 1, 2004
The study began in 1995 by the Harvard School of Public Health, and focused on 1,078 pregnant women with HIV in Tanzania over six years, the Boston Globe reported Thursday.
Subjects were given either a single pill containing vitamins B, C and E, the multivitamin along with vitamin A, vitamin A alone or a placebo.
Researchers found the patients taking vitamins B, C and E fared best. They were 30 percent less likely to progress to the latest stage of HIV infection or to die during the study than women who received the placebo. And they were substantially less likely to develop painful mouth inflammations, rashes and atigue.
Blood tests showed that women on the multivitamin had higher levels of vital disease-fighting cells and lower levels of the AIDS virus.
A year's worth of multivitamins for an individual in Africa costs $15, whereas an annual supply of antiretroviral medications costs 20 times as much.
The research appears in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
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