Substances in soy sauce Potentially Treat HIV

Soy sauce is included in a flavor enhancer that is familiar with the culinary world . Who knows if the black viscous liquid , it is also the potential to treat HIV .

Yamasa Corp. , a Japanese company has been producing soy sauce since 1645 in 1988 established a research division of food .

One of the research was to determine how the immune system responds to various chemicals in food . Then in 2001 they announced a major discovery , namely EFdA , molecules in soy sauce that could make better sense , potentially of great use in the treatment of HIV .

EFdA ( 4' - ethynyl - 2 - fluoro - 2' - deoxyadenosine ) , similar to the 8 types of HIV drugs now on the market , which can prevent the replication of HIV .

In fact , EFdA may work better compared to tenofovir , an antivirus that can reduce the amount of HIV in the blood . People with HIV who take tenofovir often have resistance to these drugs so they need to replace it with a more powerful drug . This is a deficiency of tenofovir .

Both tenofovir and EFdA in the group of drugs called NRTIs ( nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors ) . These drugs prevent the HIV virus multiply.

One of the advantages that have been studied EFdA is not easily broken down by the liver and kidneys as well as tenofovir . This substance is also easily activated by the cell , making it more potent .

" These two reasons make EFdA more efficacious than other drugs . Task is to find out our current structural features that may soon be made into drugs , " said Stefan Sarafianos , virologist from the University of Missouri , USA .

Now he is working with pharmaceutical company Merck to test whether these drugs can be used in humans .