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Stress Hormone Believed to Trigger HIV Development

NOTE: Here are 2 different but related articles

ARTICLE Number 1

Development of the HIV virus in the human body is highly dependent on person's emotionality, scientists have found.

According to Alfred T. Sapse the stress hormone cortisol plays a role in the development of AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and other devastating diseases. If he's right, drugs that block the stress hormone cortisol could transform the treatment of millions of people.

Sapse contends that HIV, the AIDS virus, forces the adrenal glands to churn out lots of cortisol, which damages the immune system. "Cortisol is probably one of the most violent immunodepressants there is." Sapse detailed his theory on cortisol and disease in the September Psychoneuroendocrinology.

A second group has data that support an alternative theory of cortisol and AIDS. Its research hints that one of HIV's proteins masquerades as a glucocorticoid, the class of stress hormones that includes cortisol. That wily HIV protein then subverts the body's immune system.

Cortisol also assists the body in routing a viral infection or healing damaged tissue. Such reactions are usually beneficial, but when too much cortisol dampens the immune response, it shuts down the very process that fights a deadly microbe or keeps a malignant cell from exploding into an invasive tumor.

Another team has found a different line of evidence linking cortisol to AIDS. David B. Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia and his colleagues have shown that an HIV protein mimics the actions of the glucocorticoids, including cortisol.

Scientists continue to seek drugs that counter cortisol and thus fight AIDS.

Weekend Guide: 16 March 2007, Friday. p>

ARTICLE Number 2

Dealing with stress, taking a realistic view of one's health and having good self esteem might slow the progression of HIV/AIDS, according to a study presented recently at an American Psychosomatic Society meeting in Budapest, Hungary, USA Today reports.

Conall O'Cleirigh of Harvard Medical School and Gail Ironson of the University of Miami studied 174 men and women. At the start of the study, participants wrote an essay describing their emotional responses to a traumatic event and most wrote about issues associated with HIV/AIDS. Researchers measured the participants' CD4+ T cell counts and viral loads every six months for four years.

Researchers who did not know the participants' CD4 counts and viral loads examined their essays for four qualities: realism, good self esteem, addressing problems directly and emotional expression. Researchers took into account the participants' disease stage, medications, education and other factors that could affect HIV/AIDS progression, according to O'Cleirigh. The researchers found that CD4 cells declined more slowly and viral loads were lower among participants who dealt with stress in emotionally healthy ways at the start of the study, O'Cleirigh said. He added that people who cope better with stress might be more likely to find a doctor and regularly take their medications. They also might "reap benefits to their immune system because they're coping well with stress," O'Cleirigh said. The stress hormone cortisol hinders the immune system, and people who handle stress might have less cortisol, USA Today reports. "We don't know exactly how these emotions work to affect illness," Susan Folkman, director of the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at University of California-San Francisco Medical School, said, adding, "But I don't think we're talking magic. ... It's probably a combination of behaviors that might slow progression and effects on the immune system from the emotions."

According to O'Cleirigh, the study's findings suggest that doctors should look at how HIV-positive people are coping with stress, adding that people who are not managing it well should be referred to counseling (Elias, USA Today, 3/13).

Weekend Guide: 16 March 2007, Friday. Elias, USA Today, 3/13