Hi Nelson,

Do you take this? Peter

Anti-HIV activity of olive leaf extract and modulation of host cell gene expression by HIV-1 infection and olive leaf extract treatment. Lee-Huang S. ew York University School of Medicine, New York Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2003 Aug 8;307(4):1029-37. We investigated the antiviral activity of olive leaf extract preparations standardized by liquid chromatography-coupled mass spectrometry (LC-MS) against HIV-1 infection and replication. We find that olive leaf extract inhibits acute infection and cell-to-cell transmission of HIV-1 as assayed by syncytia formation using uninfected MT2 cells co-cultured with HIV-1-infected H9 T lymphocytes. olive leaf extract also inhibits HIV-1 replication as assayed by p24 expression in infected H9 cells. These anti-HIV effects of olive leaf extract are dose dependent, with EC(50)s of around 0.2 microg/ml. In the effective dose range, no cytotoxicity on uninfected target cells was detected. The therapeutic index of olive leaf extract is above 5000. To identify viral and host targets for olive leaf extract, we characterized gene expression profiles associated with HIV-1 infection and olive leaf extract treatment using cDNA microarrays. HIV-1 infection modulates the expression patterns of cellular genes involved in apoptosis, stress, cytokine, protein kinase C, and hedgehog signaling. HIV-1 infection up-regulates the expression of the heat-shock proteins hsp27 and hsp90, the DNA damage inducible transcript 1 gadd45, the p53-binding protein mdm2, and the hedgehog signal protein patched 1, while it down-regulates the expression of the anti-apoptotic BCL2-associated X protein Bax. Treatment with olive leaf extract reverses many of these HIV-1 infection-associated changes. Treatment of HIV-1-infected cells with olive leaf extract also up-regulates the expression of the apoptosis inhibitor proteins IAP1 and 2, as well as the calcium and protein kinase C pathway signaling molecules IL-2, IL-2Ralpha, and ornithine decarboxylase ODC1.

No. I tried it around 1995 before HAART but did not see any improvements in CD4 cells. Many things look great in " in vitro" studies in the lab but do not translate well in humans. However, I am not saying that there is no potential benefit in studying this compound.

Nelson