Drug breaks for newbies

Men's Fitness, March, 2003

Scientists have theorized that taking scheduled, supervised medication breaks can help "teach" the immune system to control HW while giving patients a much-needed respite from the expense, complexity and side effects of antiretroviral therapy. While taking "drug vacations" has the ability to alter the immune system's response to HIV in people newly infected with the virus, these preliminary results aren't being duplicated among more-veteran patients.

In a study of 97 people with chronic HIV infection, a consortium of Spanish, Swiss and British researchers found that "structured therapeutic interruptions [were] generally unable" to make an important impact in immune-system activity. Viral-load differences were insignificant, and only subjects who had "strong and broad HIV-specific CD8 T-lymphocyte responses" before the breaks continued to have them afterward.

The report was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.