Vitamin A and human immunodeficiency virus infection

Abstract

By the year 2000 there will be an estimated twenty-six million individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (Quinn, 1996). About four to five million cumulative cases are expected among children by the year 2000. The areas hardest-hit by the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic are sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and south-east Asia, where the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies is generally higher. More than 90 % of new HIV infections are now occurring in developing countries. Although HIV infection is characterized by a variety of micronutrient deficiencies and wasting (Beach et al. 1992; Kotler & Grunfeld, 1995), the relationship between nutritional status and clinical outcome in HIV infection is not well understood. Vitamin A plays a major role in normal immune function (Semba, 1994), and as early as the 1960s it was acknowledged that ‘no micronutrient deficiency is more synergistic with infection than that of vitamin A’ (Scrimshaw et al. 1968). The present review focuses on the relationship between vitamin A, immunity, and HIV infection.