No, your diet can’t reverse HIV naturally

The title of a video circulating on Facebook has a big lure: "How to reverse HIV naturally," it says. "Take notes and improve your life." 

The video itself does not offer an explicit roadmap for how an individual could supposedly reverse the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which makes people vulnerable to other infections and disease and can lead to AIDS.

But it does suggest that scrubbing certain foods from diets, such as "unnatural sugars," is key. 

"HIV was an invention created by the west," a man in the video says. 

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HIV came from a virus in a chimpanzee in Central Africa that was "probably passed to humans when humans hunted these chimpanzees for meat and came in contact with their infected blood," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The virus has existed in the United States since at least the 1970s. 

There is no cure, but HIV is treatable — medicine that effectively reduces the amount the virus in someone’s body. According to the CDC, most people can get the virus under control within six months. 

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If it’s left untreated, however, HIV can lead to AIDS. 

"The human body can’t get rid of HIV," HIV.gov plainly says on its site.

Eating a healthy diet supports overall health, and helps people maintain their immune systems, according to the National Institutes of Health. And good nutrition also helps people with HIV maintain a healthy weight and absorb the medicines needed to keep the virus under control. 

But it won’t reverse the virus. 

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