Could heart drugs treat HIV?
A study of six AIDS patients has revealed that statins can reduce levels of HIV and boost immune cell numbers. If the results can be repeated in large-scale trials, it’s hoped that statins could provide an alternative to standard HIV treatments. To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right). Comments Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking ‘Report this comment’ (or, if that doesn’t work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published. There are currently no comments.
A study of six AIDS patients has revealed that statins can reduce levels of HIV and boost immune cell numbers. If the results can be repeated in large-scale trials, it’s hoped that statins could provide an alternative to standard HIV treatments. Statins are taken by millions of people to lower cholesterol levels and help protect against heart disease. And studies have shown that cultured cells with low levels of cholesterol in their membranes are less likely to succumb to HIV infection. So, Carlos MartÃnez from the Spanish Council for Scientific Research and colleagues decided to study the effects of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs on HIV patients. Their results are reported in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. A one-month course of statin treatment caused the virus levels of human patients to drop by up to 20-fold. Levels began to rise when patients stopped taking the drug. When mice, injected with HIV-infected human cells, were given the drugs, their virus levels fell, in some
