Posted on 02/14/2008 10:07:27 PM PST by neverdem
Even the best drugs currently available cannot weed out HIV from all of its hiding places within the body, according to a new study of HIV patients in the United States. The discovery seems to confirm doctors' suspicions that once the virus gains a foothold, it can never be fully eradicated from the body.
After years of aggressive drug treatment, the virus still hides out in significant reservoirs, particularly in tissues surrounding the gut lining, the researchers report. Cells in these tissues, a part of the immune system called 'gut-associated lymphoid tissue', remain infected with the virus even though the patient may be leading an apparently healthy life.
Many HIV patients can manage their infection with a cocktail of drugs called antiretroviral therapies (ARTs). These can reduce their 'viral load' — the amount of virus circulating in the blood plasma — to undetectable levels.
But the new study shows that even in such 'non-infectious' patients the virus is still lurking in gut tissues, and still infecting other immune cells in the blood.
"It might not ever be possible to completely eradicate the virus from the body, even though people are doing well," says Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the research. He adds, however, that this doesn't mean that patients will be more likely than previously thought to pass on the virus to others.
Incurable
The finding underlines HIV's status as an 'incurable' infection, although in many cases doctors are able to stave off the onset of full-blown AIDS by giving patients sustained courses of drugs.
Indeed, so effective are current drugs that most say HIV should now be seen as a chronic disease requiring lifelong management, in the same way as diabetes or chronic hypertension. "It's not a death sentence," says Deenan Pillay of University College London, an expert on antiviral treatments.
Earlier this month, the Swiss National AIDS Commission broke with convention by declaring that HIV-positive patients who had had successful antiretroviral treatment could be declared 'non-infectious' through sex. Other health agencies still maintain that the only safe way to prevent HIV transmission is to practice safe sex, particularly by using a condom.
The new results show that even state-of-the-art drugs cannot stop HIV replicating in certain body tissues, Pillay says. "We have always known that current paradigms of treatment are not sufficient. If anything, this demonstrates that there's even further to go."
Fauci and his colleagues studied eight HIV patients, who had been taking ART drugs for several years, and in one case nearly a decade. All were in good health with low blood plasma levels of the virus. But when the researchers took biopsies of their gut lymphoid tissue, they found that HIV was still present, and levels of CD4+ cells — the cells targeted by the virus — were lower than normal.
The researchers also compared DNA from HIV found in the gut with DNA from HIV found in white blood cells , and found that they were very similar, indicating that the two tissues constantly re-infect one another as the virus replicates; the gut reservoir is not isolated from the rest of the body. The results are published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Stamped down early
Pillay argues that HIV tests should be given to more patients who show the flu-like symptoms of early infection, in a bid to identify more people who have only just been exposed to the virus. Because the virus colonizes the gut tissues early in infection, rapid intervention may help to reduce the size of this viral reservoir. That could in turn make it easier to keep blood plasma viral loads low during the course of the disease.
Last year, Britain's chief medical officer Liam Donaldson wrote to doctors, urging them to test more widely for the virus. "There's a push to get wider testing, and I'm personally very much in favour of it," Pillay says.
Reducing viral reservoirs by early intervention could particularly help patients without access to top-of-the-range drug treatments, Pillay suggests.
I remember hearing 20 years ago that no virus had ever been cured. It’s probably still true, but what the hey, let’s pour a bunch more money down this rathole.
Personally I would be more worried about herpes. It is incurable and extremely common. It won’t kill you but you’ll have to deal with outbreaks for the rest of your life. Not worth it.
True!
“It’s not a death sentence.”
Ok buddy, infect yourself and see if you feel that way.
Putz.
“Your chances of getting HIV from normal, heterosexual activity with individuals who are not in a high-risk group is close to zero.”
True, but your chances of genital herpes, chlymadia or pregnancy are pretty high. Not as bad as AIDS, but they are serious repercussions.
I think a lot of times, people view God’s laws, like the ones that forbid sex outside of marriage, as some sort of pleasure-squelching negativity.
I see the marriage requirement as a blessing. It is the perfect protection for people He loves. If you wait until you’re married, and your wife does the same, you will never be at risk for any STDs of any kind. Pregnancy, even if unplanned, will be at least ok and probably fantastic. You can do it without worries of any kind. Statistically, you’ll have the best sex (whether you are male or female).
Jealousy issues are almost non-existent. Abortions within a marriage are rare. Any children you have will be so much better off in so many ways, just for having a married mom and dad.
Why do we insist so much on going outside God’s plan? Do we see Him as our enemy or something?
Marriage is irrelevant any more, just a piece of paper for most people. I worry about the ideas and teaching of Jesus, not what some self annointed official made up long afterward.
As for AIDS... don’t have sex with other men, and don’t share needles. There, I’ve cured it! Now I don’t know if it’s a manmade virus or whatever, but I don’t feel one bit sorry for those infected except those infected via blood transfusion.
IIRC, if immune system cells express the HIV receptors CD4, CCR5, and CXCR4, typically on T-cells, and then they are infected after exposure to HIV, then those cells will replicate the virus until the death of those cells, gut or wherever. This study just confirmed some immunological expectations or fears for the gut, IMHO.
"Never" is a long time. There are many companies working towards a cure for AIDS and many other "incurable" diseases. Scientists need to outsmart these viruses.I agree. I think the cure for AIDS, when it comes, will be part of a more general cure for all viruses, including those engineered by bioterrorists. I believe that cure will come in the form of some kind of semi-intelligent nanotech that will patrol the body like a parallel immune system.
What could slow that development way down, of course, is a demo presidency that would "clamp down on evil drug companies" and make all technological development in the health fields grind nearly to a halt. Even so, interest in this subject is so high, human ingenuity is so great (even when slowed by the yoke of socialism) and nanotech is so promising that I think eventually we will have a way to run "anti-virus routines" on the human body.
Well said!
AIDS = God's Fist.
Owl_Eagle
”You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being”
>>>I remember hearing 20 years ago that no virus had ever been cured. It’s probably still true, but what the hey, let’s pour a bunch more money down this rathole.
In other words if something has never been done, it’s a waste of money to try. Scientists and engineers have forever had to fight that attitude.
And no virus ever will be cured if the research doesn’t find a technique. A breakthrough on one virus will open the door to the means of attacking them all. It’s not just a matter of AIDS and homosexuals. It just happens that circumstances have conspired to make them into politically correct human guinea pigs.
Now watch as the left goes into headspins, a la Linda Blair in the Exocist...
I always thought the same and brought it up in another thread and it was pointed out there are a ton of virus vaccines; the smallpox vaccine, the common flu shot, diphtheria, measles, yellow fever, even polio.
Another Freeper pointed to adefovir dipivoxil as an actual cure.
I think the "no cure" thing comes from the fact that there's no cure for the common cold.
Of course this doesn't mean that HIV will even have a cure or a vaccine, but I thought it was interesting.
First of all, any sort of healing requires also moral healing and taking care of one self. No amount of drugs help anyone who does not take care of themselves.
If the drug does not metabolizes its effectiveness in the stomach, then, obviously, the patient might be doing something that prevents that.
“The finding underlines HIV’s status as an ‘incurable’ infection”.
Can someone give me a list of some diseases that have actually been cured in, say, the last 30 years? Let’s not include any successes due to immunization or surgery, just medicine.
We’ve walked, run, worn ribbons and raised Billions for the cure. So what diseases have been cured?
bookmark
This is why HIV/AIDS is such a hotbutton for the left.
Liberalism is all about using the force of government to force those who make good decisions to pay for and alleviate the consequences for those who make poor behavioral decisions - ESPECIALLY when it comes to sexual behaviors. Abortion is the penultimate example of this - the MOST innocent is made to pay, with its life, for the sexual behaviors of others.
They are absolutely flummoxed that, in the case of this disease, the old prescription isn’t, and can’t work. This drives them even more (moon)batty.
You are assured that you will be successful and prosperous if you follow God’s plan.
Leftists would be hard pressed to show someone who didn’t have a good life doing so.
Joshua 1:8
Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
A person can smoke, drink, eat sugar and white bread, be 50 pounds overweight and still be healthier than the average “health club” gay... time the MSM got real about health.
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