Relationship between drug injection risk behaviors, immune activation
In an effort to promote better health outcomes for PWID, investigators, working in a three-institution multidisciplinary team, examined the relationship between injection drug use and immune activation in a sample of HIV infected and uninfected PWID. The team, led by Martin Markowitz, MD, Principal Investigator, from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, conducted a series of studies to assess correlates of immune activation. "Injection drug use (IDU), with or without HIV-infection, is associated with an increase in immune activation, measured in blood and in the GI tract," says the study's co-investigator, Sauarabh Mehandru, MD, assistant professor, Medicine and Gastroenterology , at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Research participants for the studies included people who were current and former injectors, and comparison participants who never injected. The investigators found the high prevalence of the hepatitis C virus among PWID made it difficult to disti...