A recent study shows that glycerol monolaurate, a cheap substance also found in products such as ice cream, numerous cosmetics and also in breast milk, is very effective in preventing in monkeys a virus very similar to AIDS. Scientists said the product might help protect women against the HIV. 

 

It’s not 100% safe, but it significantly increases protection against HIV infections. The substance could be used by women privately and it wouldn’t affect their chances to remain pregnant. 

 

It really sounds great: very effective, no major after effects and cheap. 

 

The substance curbs AIDS by stopping cells vulnerable to the virus from heading towards the site of the infection, according to the study that was published in the journal Nature. The glycerol monolaurate could be mixed with other drugs that prevent AIDS thus becoming a more powerful medicine against HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), said Ashley Haase, a University of Minnesota microbiologist and one of the lead scientists in the research team. 

 

The gel resulted from the aforementioned mix could be used vaginally by women to protect them from HIV infection. The sex gel researchers used on monkeys was Johnson & Johnson’s K-Y Warming Liquid. The glycerol monolaurate (GML) stops the cells the immune system sends to the site of the infection, in this case the vagina. This leads to something called “a dead-end infection,” as Charlene Dezzutti, laboratory network director of the U.S.-funded Microbicides Trials Network at the University of Pittsburgh, put it. 

 

“It’s a new approach to thinking about microbicides,” she added.