Aids Patient Hopes To Show Others The Benefits Of Exercise

Having completed the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon and New York City Marathon on successive weekends last fall, Jim Howley of Carpinteria, Calif., is going to even greater extremes to trumpet his belief in vigorous exercise for those who suffer from AIDS.

Sunday, he will leave Los Angeles with plans to bike, swim and run his way across the country on a 52-day trip scheduled to end with a jog up the steps of City Hall in New York.

By then, the 36-year-old Howley will have traveled 3,000 miles, given a series of speeches to students, doctors, patients and athletes, and, he hopes, raised $250,000 to be donated to research for AIDS, multiple sclerosis, lung cancer, breast cancer and leukemia.

“This is something I have to do,” said Howley, who holds a master’s degree in clinical psychology. “Even after I did the Ironman and the New York Marathon, people were calling me, telling me their doctors said they shouldn’t exercise. If I have to go door to door to tell people they should, I’m going to do it.

“I’m convinced exercise has kept me around for the new medicine to get here. And it’s given me an incredible support system. I always have someone to run with, bike with, swim with. No one feels sorry for me. I’m Jim the triathlete, not Jim the guy with AIDS.”

When he learned he had AIDS, on Aug. 22, 1989, Howley said he had been living a fatalistic, self-destructive life style that included two packs of cigarettes and two grams of cocaine a day. His weight had ballooned to 220 pounds. His friends were dying all around him. He figured his death was imminent.

Inspired by a friend, however, Howley turned to exercise, hoping against hope to beat the disease that leaves its victims with a fatally deficient immune system. He has since competed in more than 30 triathlons and has run 10 marathons.

There is little scientific evidence regarding the benefits or harm of strenuous exercise for those who have contracted AIDS, experts said. But Howley and his doctor, Gary Cohan, an AIDS specialist in L.A., are convinced exercise has helped the 6-foot, 195-pound Howley maintain his lean body mass and avoid the wasting away many AIDS patients suffer. They also believe exercise has helped him respond better to medication and has provided psychological and emotional benefits.

His exercise regimen is combined with an equally vigorous regimen of medication. With new drug therapies, a growing number of AIDS patients have experienced what appear to be dramatic improvements in their immune systems. Howley, who had a diagnosis of full-blown AIDS nearly eight years ago, uses a combination of the newer, so-called protease inhibitors Norvir and Invirase. HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has been undetectable in his system for more than a year.

Still, Cohan cautions, there is no cure for AIDS, and the virus could become resistant to the drugs that Howley is taking. Howley’s T-cell count has risen from 2 to 277. Although it varies, a normal range is 800 to 1,200. T-cells are immune cells the AIDS virus destroys.

“Will this last forever? We don’t know,” Cohan said of Howley. “Is he living proof people can do well much longer than we thought? Sure. He’s taken the best-case scenario, and he’s run with it. He’s been the inspiration for a lot of other patients.”

In preparation for his cross-country triathlon, Howley has been biking 300 miles a week and running 55 to 60 miles a week near his home, just south of Santa Barbara. He will bike from California across the Rocky Mountains, swim across the Colorado and Mississippi Rivers and for a 1-mile stretch along the shore of Lake Michigan, then run the final leg to New York.

He will wear a heart-rate monitor (he wants to stay under 150 beats a minute), and will be accompanied at all times by at least two others in a recreational vehicle. Cohan has cautioned him to drink only bottled water to prevent opportunistic infections. Howley will also take protein supplements in an effort to prevent a significant loss of muscle mass.

His goal is to cover 80 to 140 miles a day during the bike phase and 20 miles a day running. If all goes well, he plans to arrive in New York City on May 27.