HIV research: Increased weight gain with TAF medication
2021-03-15
(Press-News.org) In Switzerland about 17 000 people are living with an HIV infection, worldwide there are about 38 million. Today, the disease can be treated so successfully that a normal life can be ensured to a great extent. However, weight increases are often observed at the beginning of HIV therapy due to adaptations of the metabolism, which are part of a successful therapy. Therefore, body weight control plays an important role in HIV therapy. It is important, for example, to avoid metabolic problems that can lead to heart attacks or diabetes over the long term.
Tenofovir is the drug used as part of the standard HIV therapies. The previously, widely used TDF-based therapy (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, TDF) has been associated with renal side effects and bone loss. It was therefore steadily replaced with a new variant, TAF-based therapy (tenofovir alafenamide), which was associated with fewer side effects. The study presented here explores evidence of excessive weight gain after switching from TDF to TAF.
TAF leads to disproportionate weight gain
The key finding of the study shows that individuals who switched to TAF therapy gained significantly more weight (1.7 kg) than individuals who remained on TDF therapy (0.7 kg) during the observed 18 months. This effect was seen in all subgroups of the study and independent of previous medication. In the group with a normal BMI, 13.8% became overweight or obese with TAF, compared with 8.4% receiving TDF. At the same time, a negative development of lipid metabolism was noted, with an overall increase in blood lipid levels. Lead author Bernard Surial notes: "The result was very consistent. Cardiovascular complications are a leading cause of illness and death in people with HIV. Accordingly, the metabolic changes found are of great significance."
Extensive study
The multicenter cohort study included 4375 participants of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study who had been treated with a TDF-based therapy for at least 6 months prior to the start of the study. Swiss university hospitals, other hospitals and private practices were involved. The central research question focused on the problem of determining the change in weight and fat levels induced by switching from TDF to TAF.
The study also addressed the question of whether diabetes would be diagnosed more often with TAF. However, no clear answer could be found here, as the time period of 18 months for the study was probably too short.
The study was carried out as part of a larger project examining the different aspects of switching from TDF to TAF. The research group has already reported on the development of renal function after switching from TDF to TAF (Changes in Renal Function After Switching From TDF to TAF in HIV-Infected Individuals: A Prospective Cohort Study).
What do these results mean for practice?
TAF is now part of the most commonly used HIV therapies with very good efficacy and tolerability. The study now shows that increased attention needs to be paid to the problem of weight gain when switching to TAF. Instead of an unconditional, automatic switch from TDF to TAF, the advantages of better renal tolerance and avoidance of bone loss must be balanced against the disadvantages of weight gain and increased blood lipid levels in the future. Individual counseling can be used to develop optimal patient-specific solutions.
Impact on patient care, guidelines and upcoming studies
Research into the long-term effects of HIV therapies on body weight and blood lipid metabolism is a high priority in HIV medicine. Prof. Andri Rauch, head of the study, therefore notes: "With its large number of participants, the significant result of our study for patient care helps both in the individual counseling of people with HIV and in the optimization of the international HIV guidelines. In future, more in-depth studies, it will be necessary to investigate the exact mechanisms of the metabolic changes and especially their effects (heart attacks, diabetes, etc.). Needless to say, the search also continues for new drugs that can ensure successful HIV therapy without negative effects in the long term."
INFORMATION:
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-03-15
An important Maya man buried nearly 1,300 years ago led a privileged yet difficult life. The man, a diplomat named Ajpach' Waal, suffered malnutrition or illness as a child, but as an adult he helped negotiate an alliance between two powerful dynasties that ultimately failed. The ensuing political instability left him in reduced economic circumstances, and he probably died in relative obscurity.
During excavations at El Palmar, a small plaza compound in Mexico near the borders of Belize and Guatemala, archaeologists led by Kenichiro Tsukamoto, an assistant professor of anthropology at UC Riverside, discovered a hieroglyph-adorned stairway ...
2021-03-15
(Boston)-- Newly published National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Consensus Diagnostic Criteria for Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome (TES) are the first expert consensus criteria developed for the clinical disorder associated with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) brain pathology. CTE is a degenerative brain disease associated with a history of repetitive head impacts, including those sustained in contact and collision sports such as American football and boxing. At this time, CTE can only be diagnosed after death through a neuropathological examination of brain tissue. There has been no accepted approach or agreed upon criteria for the diagnosis of CTE and its clinical manifestations during life until now.
"The publication of these criteria ...
2021-03-15
Exercise during pregnancy may let mothers significantly reduce their children's chances of developing diabetes and other metabolic diseases later in life, new research suggests.
A study in lab mice has found that maternal exercise during pregnancy prevented the transmission of metabolic diseases from an obese parent - either mother or father - to child. If the finding holds true in humans, it will have "huge implications" for helping pregnant women ensure their children live the healthiest lives possible, the researchers report in a new scientific paper.
This means that one day soon, a woman's first trip to the doctor after conceiving might include a prescription for an exercise ...
2021-03-15
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, a stimulus package introduced by the Biden Administration, recently received Congress' approval. The stimulus package, like its two predecessors aimed at providing relief for individuals and businesses hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic, includes another round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
The American Rescue Plan includes $7.25 billion for PPP loans as well as a number of changes to make it easier for the smallest of businesses to gain access to the funding. With billions on the table for struggling small businesses, new research from the University of Florida Warrington College of ...
2021-03-15
How important is fame? What about self-acceptance? Benevolence? The messages children between the ages of 8 and 12 glean from TV play a significant role in their development, influencing attitudes and behaviors as they grow into their teenage years and beyond, UCLA psychologists say.
Now, a new report by UCLA's Center for Scholars and Storytellers assesses the values emphasized by television programs popular with tweens over each decade from 1967 to 2017, charting how 16 values have waxed and waned in importance during that 50-year span.
Among the key findings is that fame, after nearly 40 years of ranking near the bottom (it was 15th in 1967, 1987 and 1997), rose to become the No. 1 ...
2021-03-15
Louisiana State University researchers recently published findings that blight leads to an increased abundance of disease-carrying mosquitoes. The researchers investigated the presence of several mosquito species in two adjacent but socio-economically contrasting neighborhoods in Baton Rouge: the historic Garden District, a high-income neighborhood, and the Old South neighborhood, a low-income area. They found significantly higher adult and larvae abundance of the Asian tiger mosquito (a carrier of Zika and dengue) and higher mosquito habitat availability--particularly discarded tires--in the Old South neighborhood. This indicates that environmental conditions in the low-income neighborhood were most ideal for this mosquito to breed and proliferate.
"These ...
2021-03-15
Some invasive species targeted for total eradication bounce back with a vengeance, especially in aquatic systems, finds a study led by the University of California, Davis.
The study, published today in the journal PNAS, chronicles the effort --and failure -- to eradicate invasive European green crabs from a California estuary. The crabs increased 30-fold after about 90 percent had been removed. The study is the first experimental demonstration in a coastal ecosystem of a dramatic population increase in response to full eradication.
"A failure in science often leads to ...
2021-03-15
The world's oceans are a vast repository for gases including ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. They absorb these gases from the atmosphere and draw them down to the deep, where they can remain sequestered for centuries and more.
Marine CFCs have long been used as tracers to study ocean currents, but their impact on atmospheric concentrations was assumed to be negligible. Now, MIT researchers have found the oceanic fluxes of at least one type of CFC, known as CFC-11, do in fact affect atmospheric concentrations. In a study appearing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team reports that the global ocean will reverse its longtime role as a sink for the potent ozone-depleting chemical.
The researchers ...
2021-03-15
In 1966, US Army scientists drilled down through nearly a mile of ice in northwestern Greenland--and pulled up a fifteen-foot-long tube of dirt from the bottom. Then this frozen sediment was lost in a freezer for decades. It was accidentally rediscovered in 2017.
In 2019, University of Vermont scientist Andrew Christ looked at it through his microscope--and couldn't believe what he was seeing: twigs and leaves instead of just sand and rock. That suggested that the ice was gone in the recent geologic past--and that a vegetated landscape, perhaps a boreal forest, stood where a mile-deep ice sheet as big ...
2021-03-15
For the first time, researchers have pinpointed what causes normal proteins to convert to a diseased form, causing conditions like CJD and Kuru.
The research team, from Imperial College London and the University of Zurich, also tested a way to block the process, which could lead to new drugs for combatting these diseases.
The research concerned prion diseases - a group of brain diseases caused by proteins called prions that malfunction and 'misfold', turning into a form that can accumulate and kill brain cells. These diseases can take decades to manifest, but are then are aggressive and fatal.
They include Kuru, mad cow disease and its human equivalent Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), and a heritable condition called fatal familial ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] HIV research: Increased weight gain with TAF medication
