Chime School

Posts Tagged ‘HIV treatment’

Immune therapies are treatments which influence or modify certain components of the immune system. besides drugs a number of therapies are being looked into for use by people with HIV by boosting the body’s immunity.

How AIDS Medications are combined and the order in which they are given are important factors to consider when designing treatment strategies for patients new to antiretroviral therapy, says a new study funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health. When HIV-infected individuals begin treatment with a combination of the drugs zidovudine, better known as AZT, lamivudine and efavirenz, the drugs retain their effectiveness for a longer period of time than when individuals begin treatment with one of several other three-drug regimens. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) employs combinations of anti-HIV drugs to help suppress the virus in people with HIV/AIDS. The purpose of HAARt is combined various HIV medications to supress HIV in a multitude of ways. Two classes that help prevent the virus from copying, called RT reverse transcriptase inhibitors RT, PI’s stop the virus from being infectious. RT inhibitors can be further broken down into nucleoside RT inhibitors, which halt HIV replication by making faulty DNA building blocks, and non-nucleoside inhibitors, which bind to the enzyme reverse transcriptase to prevent the virus from copying itself. The effectiveness of different drug combinations may diminish over time, however, and physicians often must implement new ones over the course of a person’s treatment. Combination AIDS HIV regimens are our currently most effective method in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Using this regimens we have been able to prolong lives, improve quality of life and even slow the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

The availability of HAART since 1996 has had a dramatic effect on the face of HIV/AIDS. HAART is a customized combination of different classes of medications that a physician prescribes based on such factors as the patient’s viral load, CD4⁺ lymphocyte count, and clinical symptoms. CD4⁺ lymphocytes are white blood cells that HIV infects and kills, leading to a weakened immune system and AIDS. Though not a cure, HAART controls viral load, helping to delay the onset of symptoms and achieve prolonged survival in people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.

HAART has helped to reduce the health implications of HIV. Diagnoses of HIV OI’s and other complications have decreased sigificantly since its introduction. Other neurological problems associated with long term use of this therapy include nerve damage. HAART is reported to have an effect to increase lipid (fat) levels in the blood, changed glucose metabolism and other complications.

Interactions with HAART and other medications used in the treatment of addiction may hurt both treatments. For example, methadone blood concentration drops as a result of the components in HAART therapy. Research is under way to determine if buprenorphine, a newer medication for the treatment of opioid addictions, has similar liabilities.

One issue for people treated with HAART is sticking to the medication regimen which is needed to benefit from HAART. Adherence to HIV regimens can be hard for drug users with chaotic lifestyles, which can prevent them from following prescribe regimens. In addition, because HAART reduces viral load, some patients mistakenly believe that they do not need to adhere to the HIV/AIDS treatment regimen or that reduced viral load means elimination of the risk of transmitting HIV. This sometimes will lead to a complacency, where risky behaviors are resumed. Research has improved HIV/AIDS outcomes amoung IDU and has advanced discoveries for long term treatment of HIV/AIDS.