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he study followed 399 participants (195 immediate ART and 204 deferred ART) for an average of 2.2 years. Although the study revealed a negative effect on bone density of immediate ART, the overall benefits of ART for preventing HIV transmission and adverse health outcomes prevail. It will be important to understand the long-term consequences of reductions in bone mineral density associated with ART and whether these reductions continue or stabilise with longer therapy. "What we found was that starting treatment is also associated with accelerated bone loss of about 2-4%, and the rate of decline then appears to slow after the first 2 years of treatment, compared with HIV positive people who deferred treatment," said Prof. Jennifer Hoy, lead author of the  Journal of Bone and Mineral Research study. "We have no cure for HIV, so antiretroviral treatment is for life. An increased rate of bone loss may become important years later, in the setting of increased risk of fra...

In recent years, scientists made the surprising discovery that seminal fluid harbors fragments of proteins that clump together, forming structures called amyloid fibrils. "Amyloid fibrils are normally only found in diseases caused by protein misfolding, such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, so the natural presence of multiple amyloids in the semen of healthy men was completely unexpected," said Warner C. Greene, MD, PhD, senior investigator and director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology. "While these semen amyloids can promote infection by HIV and other sexually transmitted viruses, we speculated they must have a different natural function." Greene, together with Gladstone Visiting Investigator Nadia R. Roan, PhD, and their colleagues set out to identify the natural function of these semen amyloids by focusing on whether they participate in reproduction. Specifically, they looked at their potential effect on sperm activity. ...