Free Republic

For two decades, the dominant idea in HIV research has been that antiretroviral therapy effectively wipes out active viruses that cause devastating infections but leaves behind a reservoir of infected cells seemingly invisible to the immune system — until treatment is stopped. Then the virus comes roaring back. Now two new studies reveal that the virus continues to put the immune system through a workout. Some infected cells churn out bits of viral RNA and protein that elicit an immune response, researchers report in the Sept. 13 Cell Host & Microbe. While not infectious, those damaged viral particles appear to...

MitoQ, a mitochondrial antioxidant that is available to the public as a diet supplement, was found in a mouse study to reverse the detrimental effects that HIV and antiretroviral therapy (ART) have on mitochondria in the brain, heart, aorta, lungs, kidney and liver. Compared to uninfected mice, HIV infected mice treated with ART had mitochondrial dysfunction in the human immune cells in the brain, heart, liver, lungs, and gut. ART itself also affected mitochondrial function in mouse heart cells. When treated with MitoQ for 90 days, HIV infected mice had reduced mitochondrial dysfunction in organs compared to HIV infected mice...

HIV infections are rising among gay men in many parts of the world, the World Health Organization warned Friday, urging all men who have sex with men to take antiretroviral drugs to prevent infection. "We are seeing exploding epidemics," warned Gottfried Hirnschall, who heads WHO's HIV department. Infection rates are rising again among men who have sex with men -- the group at the epicentre of AIDS pandemic when it first emerged 33 years ago, he told reporters in Geneva. While images of skeletal men dying of AIDS in the 1980s pushed the world to act, a younger generation that...