Cocaine Use Can Increase Susceptibility To HIV
Researchers are providing us with even more reasons to keep our noses clean. A new study finds that cocaine use can increase cells' susceptibility to HIV.
A new UCLA study published in the October issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology examines how cocaine affects a unique population of immune cells called quiescent CD4 T cells, which are resistant to the virus that causes AIDS.
The results: cocaine makes the cells susceptible to infection with HIV, causing both significant infection and new production of the virus.
“The surprising result was that the changes cocaine induced on these cells were very minimal, yet they were sufficient to fuel infection,” said Dimitrios Vatakis, assistant professor of medicine in the division of hematology/oncology at the David Geffen
Schoolof Medicine at UCLA and the study’s senior author. “We found that cocaine mediates its effects directly, inducing minimal changes in the physiology of these cells and utilizing the same pathways it uses to target the brain.”
They found that a three-day exposure to cocaine made the cells more susceptible to HIV infection by stimulating two receptors in the cells, called σ1 and D4. The findings suggest that cocaine use increases the pool of T cells in the human body that can become infected by the virus.
Yeah, we think we'll stick to hugs, not drugs. Thoughts on these new findings, Instincters?