Efavirenz Doesn’t Worsen Hep C Treatment Side Effects The HIV drug efavirenz (found in Sustiva and Atripla) does not substantially worsen psychiatric side effects of interferon, a treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV), according to a study published online July 23 in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
July 30, 2008
Deaths From Cancer, Liver and Cardiovascular Disease Growing Although deaths from AIDS-related conditions continue to diminish among people living with HIV in countries where antiretroviral (ARV) therapy is widely used, deaths from non-AIDS-related cancers, end-stage liver disease and cardiovascular disease continue to increase, according to a study published in the August 15 issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
July 29, 2008
Meditation May Benefit the Immune System People with HIV who completed an intensive eight-week course in meditation lost fewer CD4 cells than people who took only a one-day course, according to a study conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
July 28, 2008
Life Expectancy With HIV Increases Dramatically A 20-year-old HIV-positive person starting antiretroviral therapy today can expect to live, on average, to the age of 69, according to new calculations published July 26 in The Lancet.
July 25, 2008
Kaletra and Efavirenz Affect Prednisolone Levels Blood levels of the anti-inflammatory drug prednisolone (Prelone) can decrease when combined with efavirenz (found in Sustiva and Atripla) and increase when combined with Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir), according to study results published online July 12 in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
July 24, 2008
NRTIs Important as Component of Antiretroviral Therapy An antiretroviral (ARV) regimen that does not contain a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) can't control HIV or increase CD4 cells as well as regimens with an NRTI, according to a study published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.
July 23, 2008
Gilead’s Elvitegravir Enters Phase III Studies A Phase III clinical trial of Gilead Science’s once-daily experimental integrase inhibitor elvitegravir is now open and enrolling patients, according to a press release issued yesterday by the company.
Allergy Testing, Heart Risk Assessment Recommended Before Starting Abacavir
All HIV-positive people considering an antiretroviral regimen that contains abacavir—the active component in Ziagen and also found in Epzicom and Trizivir—should first be tested for a human gene that has been closely tied to a serious allergic reaction to the drug, according to new language added to Ziagen’s official prescribing information.
July 22, 2008
Mediterranean and Low-Carb Better than Low-Fat Diets People following a Mediterranean or a low-carbohydrate (low-carb) diet had greater weight loss and improvements in blood sugar or cholesterol levels after two years than people on a low-fat diet, according to research published in the July 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
July 21, 2008
Overactive Immune Systems May Cause the Blues Our immune system’s reaction to serious infection, injury and stress may actually cause or worsen some types of depression, according to a Science News article published July 4.
July 18, 2008
Anal Cancer Rates Higher in HIV-Positive Men
Rates of anal cancer are higher in HIV-positive versus HIV-negative men, according to a study published in the August 1 issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.
July 17, 2008
Blood Test Predicts Hep C Treatment Response HIV-positive people who have low blood levels of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) before starting hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment are more likely to have a highly favorable response to therapy, say the authors of a study published in the July 31 issue of AIDS.
Senate Reauthorizes PEPFAR On July 16, the U.S. Senate voted to triple funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which would allocate $50 billion to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS around the world, the Associated Press reports.
July 16, 2008
Scientists Discover and Target HIV’s Weak Spot “Super” antibodies known as abzymes can overcome one of HIV’s most clever methods of escaping the immune system, say the authors of a study published in the June 2008 issue of Autoimmunity Reviews.
Age Affects Response to Antiretroviral Therapy Though older adults are more likely to reach an undetectable viral load from taking antiretroviral (ARV) therapy than their younger counterparts, people age 60 and older have less robust increases in CD4 counts, say the authors of a study published in the July 31 issue of AIDS.
Genetics May Make Africans More Vulnerable to HIV A genetic variation that protects people of African descent from a strain of malaria may also increase their risk of HIV infection by 40 percent, The Wall Street Journal reports.
July 15, 2008
Progressive Resistance Exercise Good for People With HIV Progressive resistance exercise (PRE), including weight and strength training, leads to healthy gains in weight and leg and arm size in people living with HIV, according to a research article published in the July 6 issue of AIDS Care.
July 14, 2008
Blood Tests Could Replace Liver Biopsies for Hep C A series of blood tests was nearly as accurate at predicting the progression of liver damage as liver biopsies in people coinfected with both HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV), say the authors of a study published in the July 31 issue of AIDS.
July 11, 2008
Therapeutic Vaccine Tanks in Study In another setback to HIV immunization research, the ALVAC 1452 therapeutic vaccine led to higher viral loads and less time off antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in HIV-positive patients in a study published in the July 11 issue of AIDS and reported by AIDSmap.
July 10, 2008
Roche Abandoning In-House HIV Research Roche pharmaceuticals has alerted the community that it is terminating its in-house research for new HIV drugs, according to a letter released to HIV treatment activists.
July 09, 2008
HIV Can Take Shortcuts to Reproduce HIV can reproduce without going through its usual life cycle steps, suggesting that the human body may harbor more copies of the virus capable of damaging the immune system than was previously thought, according to new research published online in the journal Retrovirology.
July 08, 2008
Fatty Liver Common in Patients With Metabolic Problems Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)—a condition marked by chronic liver inflammation in people who drink little or no alcohol and who do not have viral hepatitis—was found in more than a third of HIV-positive patients being treated for metabolic disorders, say the authors of a study published in the July 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
July 07, 2008
Viramune Prescribing Information Updated Children should be prescribed Viramune (nevirapine) based on the total surface area of their bodies rather than by weight, says a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcement regarding revisions to Viramune’s prescribing information.
July 03, 2008
Guidelines Reiterate Resistance Testing for All New HIV Cases Drug-resistance testing is recommended at the time of HIV infection diagnosis, as well as in all cases of treatment failure, reiterate new guidelines from the International AIDS Society-USA (IAS-USA), published in the July 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
July 02, 2008
CD4 Recovery Increases Asthma Risk in Children HIV-positive children whose immune systems recover during antiretroviral (ARV) therapy face an increased risk of developing asthma, according to a study published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Bone Fractures More Common in HIV HIV-positive people are more likely to suffer broken bones than their age-matched HIV-negative peers, according to a new study published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Montaner: Treat HIV to Help Curb Infection Spread The use of HIV treatment as a prevention strategy has been largely overlooked by public health officials, according to a Canadian Medical Association Journal article authored by Dr. Julio Montaner and his colleagues.
July 31, 2008
