BY Jimmy Downs

Friday Oct 12, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- A nutrition supplement made of Coenzyme Q(10), vitamin E, selenium and methionine helps treat chronic recurrent viral mucocutaneous infections like human papillomavirus skin warts, according to a study in the journal Nutrition.

C. De Luca at Dermatology Research Institute (IDI IRCCS) in Rome, Italy and colleagues conducted the study and found patients with human papillomavirus skin warts experienced faster healing with reduced incidence of relapse.

Conventional treatments for viral recurrent dermatologic infections are not adequate because they fail to achieve fast healing and prevent relapse.  For the study, the researchers tested a nutriceutical against human papillomavirus skin warts.

The nutriceutical is capable of controlling oxygen/nitrogen reactive species (ROS/RNS) and endogenously produced ROS/RNS helps antiviral immune defence so that the researchers expected that the dietary supplement may help fight mucocutaneous chronic DNA-virus infections.

The dietary supplement was made of coenzyme Q(10), RRR-α-tocopherol, selenium aspartate, and L-methionine and was tested in two controlled clinical trials to examine the efficacy of this supplement against human papillomavirus skin warts.

In clinical trial 1,  68 patients with relapsing human papillomavirus skin warts were treated with cryotherapy followed by 180 day of nutriceutical or placebo administration. 

In clinical trial 2,  the combination of acyclovir plus subsequent 90-day nutriceutical administration was compared with acyclovir treatment alone in patients with recurrences of herpes simplex genitalis or herpes zoster. 

In both trials, the nutriceutical resulted in significantly faster healing with reduced incidence of relapses, compared to control groups. The faster recovery was confirmed by decreased viral load, increased antiviral cytokine, and serum peroxynitrite concentrations. 

Serum antioxidant capacity was found higher in those who took the dietary supplement, compared with control groups.

The dietary supplement may be used to boost the efficacy of conventional protocols in the management of relapsing mycocutaneous human papillomavirus and herpes infections, the researchers suggested.