Abstract

BackgroundMales are more susceptible than females to infections due to the differences in endocrine-immune interactions. Furthermore, it is reported that lowering cell cholesterol impairs viral replication and infection in vitro. However, the production of oxysterols in vivo by oxidation of cholesterol may result in inhibition of HIV replication. Therefore, this study was designed to determine the associations of gender and serum total cholesterol with CD4+ T cell counts and/or WHO clinical stages, and HIV ribonucleic acid (RNA) load in antiretroviral therapy (ART) naive study population with known sero-positive time of stay in Addis Ababa. MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted from February to August 2013 on 594 HIV-1 infected ART-naïve adult study participants in four hospitals Addis Ababa. CD4+ T-cell count, HIV RNA load, hemoglobin and fasting serum total cholesterol were determined. Socio-demographic characteristics, WHO clinical stages, and height and weight were collected from patients’ chart and triangulated by structured questionnaire. Pearson chi-square test, Spearman rank correlation and univariate and multivariate linear/logistic regression analyses were carried out to determine associations.ResultsMean HIV RNA load was found to be lower in women than in men (p < 0.05). CD4+ T cell count and serum total cholesterol were found to be significantly correlated with HIV RNA load (p < 0.01). Women were at lower risk of having higher HIV RNA load in comparison to men. In addition, having lower concentrations of serum total cholesterol was found to be independent predictor of higher HIV RNA load in comparison to those with higher concentrations of cholesterol in serum (p < 0.05). The multivariate binomial logistic regression also showed that the immune status was better in women than men, and in the presence of higher serum total cholesterol (p < 0.05).ConclusionGender and serum total cholesterol were found to be associated and independent predictors of HIV RNA load, and CD4+ cell count and/or WHO clinical stages. There is a significant lower HIV RNA load and better CD4+ T cell count in women and those study participants with higher serum total cholesterol.

Highlights

  • Males are more susceptible than females to infections due to the differences in endocrine-immune interactions

  • The total proportion of study participants at Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) stage or World Health Organization (WHO) clinical stages III/IV were 25.9% among which 14.4% were at WHO clinical stages III/IV

  • In concordance with other in vivo studies, this study showed that those study participants with high serum total cholesterol have lower human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) ribonucleic acid (RNA) load

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Males are more susceptible than females to infections due to the differences in endocrine-immune interactions. It is reported that lowering cell cholesterol impairs viral replication and infection in vitro. Replication of viruses is dependent upon regulation of the cellular cholesterol balance [9, 10] and endocrine-immunity interaction that differ along gender [11,12,13]. Nef of HIV inhibits activity of the ATP binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) [16], and impairs cholesterol efflux [17, 18]. Inhibiting its biosynthesis or depletion of cellular cholesterol by stimulation of cholesterol efflux through activation of ABCA1 suppresses HIV-1 infection and replication in vitro [20, 21]

Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call