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A new study showed that HIV-infected
individuals had very high levels of harmful bacteria in their digestive systems
that could make their lack of immunity even worse. The researchers believed
that the bacteria might directly weaken the digestive system’s barriers and
specific immunity.
Researchers studied 32 men, including
nine without HIV infection and 23 with HIV infection. They found that the
bacteria in the digestive tracts of HIV-infected individuals differed from the
bacteria found in digestive tracts of HIV-uninfected persons. The HIV-infected
participants had unusually high levels of salmonella, escherichia, shigella,
and staphylococcus bacteria in their digestive tracts. These bacteria cause
food poisoning that would not be serious for a person with an intact immune
system, but in HIV-positive persons, the symptoms of food poisoning—fever,
diarrhea, abdominal pain, and dehydration—persist, causing the body to waste
away from the infection.
The researchers suggested that high
levels of harmful bacteria in the digestive tract were part of the way HIV
attacked the patient’s immune system to make it useless. The existence of a
large amount of bacteria in the body would trigger the body’s initial immune
response, called inflammation, and summon other immune cells to the infection
site to kill the invading bacteria. HIV multiplies by entering immune response
cells that would normally stop an infection and destroying them. The
inflammation then continues in the body, making it vulnerable to even more
infections. Since the researchers have identified high levels of harmful
bacteria in HIV-infected patients, clinicians treating HIV-infected individuals
can pay attention to symptoms of infection from these bacteria.
The full report, “Dysbiosis of the
Gut Microbiota Is Associated with HIV Disease Progression and Tryptophan Catabolism,”
was published online in the journal Science Translational Medicine (2013;
doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.3006438).
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus.
To learn more about The Friends of
AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
