Washington, Nov 11: A new UCLA AIDS Institute study has found that a chemical from the Astragalus root, frequently used in Chinese herbal therapy, may help in the fight against HIV.
Like other kinds of cells, immune cells lose the ability to divide as they age because a part of their chromosomes known as a telomere becomes progressively shorter with cell division. As a result, the cell changes in many ways, and its disease fighting ability is compromised.
But the new study has shown that the chemical, TAT2, can prevent or slow this progressive telomere shortening.