So, what are glyconutrients and how do they benefit people affected with the HIV virus or AIDS?

Glyconutrients are nutrients that have been discovered to be vital to normal immune function and, therefore, good health. Glyconutrients were discovered because of the advances in the research in a field called glycomics, also known as Glycobiology. This science focuses on the structure and function of oligosaccharides, or chains of sugar. Now that scientists have fully identified the entire glycome or range of sugars found in the human body, they are beginning to understand the vital role they play in human health. Their research forms the foundation for the emerging field known as glycomics.

We keep hearing that sugar is bad for us, which is true of refined sugars such as sucrose, but researchers are learning that complex chains of sugars (naturally occurring in plants, fruits, mushrooms, roots, and seaweeds such as Fucoidans and many others) are vital to human health. The problem is that these sugars are difficult to obtain, in the typical, overly refined, westernized diet. Our diets are loaded with simple sugars like sucrose and fructose that raise the glycemic index and contribute to a host of serious health problems such as obesity and diabetes. In contrast, certain oligosaccharides are as essential for the proper functioning of the human body as healthy fats and proteins and vital for cell-to-cell interactions including the vital function of the human immune system.

Scientists are saying that glycomics could fuel a revolution in biology to rival that of the human genome!

Scientists and researchers say “glycomics” may well become one of the most important new words of the 21st century. And glyconutritional products…foods and supplements that incorporate this new science into their formulations…could become an integral part of the protocol for the management of many debilitating conditions, since glyconutrients facilitate cell-to-cell communication in the body.

"This is going to be the future," declares biochemist Gerald Hart of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "We won't understand immunology, neurology, developmental biology or disease until we get a handle on glycobiology."…"If you ask what is the glycome for a single cell type, it's probably many thousands of times more complex than a genome," says Ajit Varki, director of the Glycobiology Research and Training Center at the University of California San Diego,… Raymond Dwek, head of the University of Oxford's Glycobiology Institute, who coined the term "glycobiology" in 1988, says that sugars were often dismissed as unimportant, "as just decorations on proteins – people didn't know how to deal with them." They could not have been more wrong. As recent advances in genetics have unfolded, the importance of sugars has become ever more apparent… Varki sees it as a journey of exploration. "It's like we've just discovered the continent of North America. Now we have to send out the scouting parties to find out how big it is…" New Scientist, October 2002 by Science writer Karen Schmidt

[Glycomics are] known to regulate hormones, organize embryonic development, direct the movement of cells and proteins throughout the body, and regulate the immune system. It shows yet again that the DNA in the genome is only one aspect of the complex mechanism that keeps the body running—decoding the DNA is one step towards understanding, but by itself it doesn't specify everything that happens within the organism. Michael Quinion