A scientific smorgasbord for AIDS.A scientific smorgasbord for AIDS Reaffirmation from federal officials that they will mail controversially explicit AIDS brochures to all U.S. households was only part of last week's news about the disease. Researchers here and abroad released more new scientific data on AIDS, including the following: * Many people have wondered whether kissing can transmit the AIDS virus AIDS virus n. See HIV. (HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. ). With no documented cases of mouth-to-mouth transmission, current scientific thought says there is no danger, despite the fact some studies have found HIV in saliva. Now researchers at the National Institute of Dental Research in Bethesda, Md., report saliva from three healthy men stopped HIV from infecting blood cells blood cells, n.pl the formed elements of the blood, including red cells (erythrocytes), white cells (leukocytes), and platelets (thrombocytes). blood cells See erythrocyte and leukocyte. Platelets are classed separately. in vitro in vitro /in vi·tro/ (in ve´tro) [L.] within a glass; observable in a test tube; in an artificial environment. in vi·tro adj. In an artificial environment outside a living organism. . Writing in the May JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION The Journal of the American Dental Association, or JADA, is a monthly journal of reliable, peer-reviewed information on dentistry, and is published by the American Dental Association (ADA). The current editor is Dr. , the scientists say they hope to identify which saliva substances inhibit the virus, and to test saliva from AIDS patients and others. * Direct sunlight may be one of the factors that reactivate re·ac·ti·vate v. 1. To make active again. 2. To restore the ability to function or the effectiveness of. re·ac HIV and cause its proliferation inside cells, suggest scientists from Pennsylvania and Belgium. Their report in the May 5 NATURE concludes that ultraviolet light Ultraviolet light A portion of the light spectrum not visible to the eye. Two bands of the UV spectrum, UVA and UVB, are used to treat psoriasis and other skin diseases. -- a component of sunlight -- enhances HIV replication up to 150-fold when T lymphocytes are irradiated prior to infection. When they exposed cells directly to the sun for 30 minutes, HIV activity increased about 12-fold. The scientists, however, do not suggest that HIV-infected individuals avoid the sun because of these preliminary laboratory results. * Based on a prospective study of 15 HIV-infected patients, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta say a patient's number of infected blood-lymphocyte cells increases dramatically during the year prior to appearance of AIDS symptoms. (Cell counts drop with the onset of AIDS.) In the six patients who subsequently developed AIDS, a 25-fold increase in infected cells occurred during the previous year -- a finding that may help physicians decide which infected-but-without-AIDS individuals to treat and when to begin therapy. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion