By Hemesh Patel
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Scientists at UCLA released a study today that found a
detrimental connection between HIV and stress.
The journal, “Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences,” published results of the research, which indicates
HIV patients with high levels of stress do not respond as well to
medication.
Dr. Steve Cole, assistant professor of hematology-oncology at
UCLA, and his team of researchers found that stress actually
increases the rate in which HIV spreads in infected individuals.
“People with high levels of stress get sick faster and die
sooner,” Cole said.
Scientists conducted clinical tests on 13 men infected with HIV
who have never taken powerful combinations of anti-retroviral
drugs. The researchers monitored the stress levels of the men under
a variety of stressful and non-stressful conditions.
“We measured how “˜high-strung’ they
were,” said Dr. Jerome Zack, professor of medicine. On one
occasion, the patients took a stressful mental arithmetic test
“which people found to be very irritating,” Cole
said.
The scientists then gave the men powerful anti-viral medication
to see if there was a relationship between stress and HIV.
The researchers measured the viral count of the individuals and
found that the amount of HIV dropped 1,000-fold in patients with
low levels of stress and only 10-fold in those with high levels of
stress. Scientists correlated these findings with the effects of
stress on HIV in the laboratory.
When they added infected T-cells, which normally fight
infection, to norepinephrine, a hormone released at times of high
stress, the amount of virus in the tissue culture increased by a
considerable amount.
Before HIV prepares for an attack, it attaches itself to a
T-cell at two different sites, binding first to a CD4 receptor and
then to a coreceptor.
“Norepinephrine increases the level of coreceptors on the
cells allowing a greater amount of virus (to infect) the
cell,” Zack said.
As a result, anti-viral drugs used during times of high stress
become less effective.
Aside from serving as a point of attachment for HIV, the
coreceptors guide T-cells to areas of infection.
An increased amount of coreceptors can alter the ability of
T-cells to move as it travels to find a source of infection, Zack
said.
The researchers found that norepinephrine interacts with the
virus so that it replicates and spreads faster.
Cole said HIV-infected patients may in the future be able to
take stress-reducing medication to lower the toll of stress on the
body.
But these drugs, called beta blockers, haven’t been proven
in humans to prevent norepinephrine from attaching to T-cells.
As a drug-free alternative to reducing stress, Cole advised
individuals who led highly stressful lives to change their
behavior. Options include vacationing, doing yoga or meditating, he
said.
Some patients saw the results of the study as a confirmation of
something that was self-evident.
“It’s good to have this information out there, but
hopefully doctors knew this in the past,” said Michael
Sausser, who was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1988 at UCLA.
“Hopefully doctors were counseling patients to reduce
their stress levels all along,” he added.
In addition to surrounding himself with people who are positive,
Sausser said he takes walks and trips to the beach to ease
stress.
“When I do things that reduce stress in my life, I feel
better, my health is better and my (T-cell count) is better,”
he said.