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AIDS News

• Some strains of the HIV virus have become resistant to the drugs used to treat them, in the same way that many bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics.

• A new strain of HIV has been discovered in Africa that is sufficiently different from any known strains that doctors fear it may evade current diagnostic blood tests.

• Women who suffer from bacterial vaginosis, an annoying but seemingly benign infection, are more likely to become infected with HIV when exposed to the virus. A man's chance of acquiring HIV doubles when he has sex with an HIV+ woman suffering from vaginosis.

One study of U.S. women found vaginosis in 23% of black women, 16% of Hispanic women, and 9% of white women. The disease can cause itching, a fishy odor, and excessive vaginal discharge. A vaginal bacterium called lactobacilli appears to protect women from vaginosis.

• Protease inhibitors have dramatically reduced death rates from AIDS, but their early success is marred by the appearance of side effects, some very serious. Some people on the drugs are developing potbellies, while their faces and limbs have become thin and wasted. Others have grown strange fatty pads in odd places. More dangerous, however, are the abnormally high levels of triglycerides found in those using protease inhibitors, and there have been reports of relatively young people suffering heart attacks.

• Despite the naysayers who claimed it could never work, AIDS prevention counseling in the inner cities has doubled condom use and cut the rate of high-risk sex in half. Experts believe that prevention alone could end the epidemic in the U.S. in ten years, but Congress continues to block measures such as condom ads, needle exchanges and sex-education programs.

• Transmission and progression of the HIV infection is apparently affected by nutritional status. Adequate vitamin intake strengthens the integrity of epithelial tissues, enhances immunity, and may decrease the replication rate and virulence of the virus. According to a study at the University of Miami School of Medicine, selenium deficiency makes it twenty times more likely that a patient with HIV will die of AIDS-related ailments than a patient with adequate levels of the mineral.

Based on information in: Journal of the American Medical Association, 24-Jun-98; Science, 4-Sept-98; Science News, 5-Sept-98; Epidemiology, July 1998 & European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 52 p 157 1998 & Vegetarian Times, Mar 1998; Business Week, 6-July-98; New Scientist, 27-Jun-98