Is there any diet you can suggest for me to follow. I am always hungry and would like to get some help on nutrition and protein. Should I be drinking alot of milk? Should I take my multivitamin 2 times a day? Thanks for your help! I am so glad You are here to help us out! mimi

There are general guidelines for diet and there are tailored recommendations that can be made for each person. Without knowing more about you, general guidelines suggest that a food-based diet should start with a well-rounded and healthy diet.

If you include milk in your diet, any recommendation beyond the typical 2 to 3 8-ounce glasses a day will only come into play if you have issues related to the items that we look to milk to solve. Even so, overdoing milk at the cost of other foods is not always the best way to go.

Protein can be a tricky issue. In general, symptomatic HIV disease may justify additional protein intake above the general recommendations for a healthy population. However, you should keep in mind that if you live in a western country, you are probably getting up to twice the recommended levels of protein, so you may already be pretty well covered with your typical diet. If you are of African descent, you will need to take special care to no overdo protein because of a higher risk for kidney problems.

Finally, the vitamin issue: if you take a multivitamin/mineral that is well-balanced and at a dose that provides 100% of recommendations per day, then 2 multivitamins per day should not be a real problem for most people. However, if you are taking a multivit/min that is not so balanced and/or combining this with other supplements, then you will want to be careful about adding more to it. In this case, you should get in contact with an HIV-savvy dietitian to evaluate both your diet and your supplements to determine if you need to make any changes.

Best wishes!