Unhealthy Alcohol Use is Associated with Monocyte Activation Prior to Starting Anti-Retroviral Therapy

Abstract
Alcohol use may accelerate HIV disease progression, but the plausible biological mechanisms have not been clearly elucidated. HIV-positive persons who were not on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) completed the baseline assessment for a longitudinal study examining the association of alcohol use with HIV disease markers. Oversampling drinkers, baseline samples were tested for markers of monocyte activation (sCD14), inflammation (IL-6), and coagulation (D-dimer). We defined “unhealthy alcohol use” as testing positive using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test – Consumption (AUDIT-C; ≥ 3 for women and ≥ 4 for men) in the past 3 months or testing positive using a biomarker of heavy drinking, phophatidylethanol (PEth; ≥ 50 ng/ml). Multiple linear regression was used to examine the associations of unhealthy alcohol use with sCD14, Log10 IL-6, and D-dimer.
Description
Keywords
Alcohol, HIV/AIDS, Immune Activation, Microbial Translocation
Citation
Carrico, A. W., Hunt, P. W., Emenyonu, N. I., Muyindike, W., Ngabirano, C., Cheng, D. M., ... & Hahn, J. A. (2015). Unhealthy alcohol use is associated with monocyte activation prior to starting antiretroviral therapy. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 39(12), 2422-2426. doi:10.1111/acer.12908.