Aids and its effect
...which enrolled 4892 HIV-negative high-risk individuals in seven US cities. The follow-up rate was 88% at 18 months. The researchers interviewed participants about risk behaviors and tested them for HIV every 6 months for 18 months (for men) or 24 months (for women). The final results did not include information about female participants because there were too few enrolled in the study for results to be statistically significant, noted Michael Marmor, MD, who led the work. Some 1.3% of study participants had two copies of the gene with the mutation, and 12.9% had one. The investigators found (after adjusting for potential confounding associated with recent risk behaviors, including unprotected receptive anal sex) that during the 18-month follow-up period, men who carried one copy of the gene with the 32 mutation were 70% less likely to become infected compared with men who lacked the mutation. Such a protective effect against infection "would be expected if individuals with this genotype have lower numbers of CCR5+ CD4+ T cells or reduced CCR5 expression," they said. The study's findings also confirmed that men with two copies of the mutated gene appear to have substantial protection against infection compared with men with one or no copiesan effect most apparent among older MSMs living in cities with a high HIV prevalence. Although only 1% of the white population has a genetic makeup that includes two copies of the 32 gene mutation, nearly 11% of white gay men aged 45 or older who lived in San Francisco and New York City and were HIV negative when the study began in 1995 had two copies of the m...