The research community has made incredible progress in developing medications to treat HIV/AIDs in the last 15-20 years. Although still a very serious condition, those with HIV/AIDs can now live longer and healthier lives. And with the advent of a drug that can now help stop the spread of the disease by preventing its transmission, we have greater potential to control disease acquisition.
Despite this progress, there is no cure for HIV and patients with this condition will have it their entire lives, whether or not it progresses to AIDs. And while antiretroviral medications for HIV/AIDs are effective, they also cause significant side effects, such as anemia, vomiting, nausea, headache, fatigue, and diarrhea.
Patients have therefore been turning to medical cannabis for many years to address some of these side effects. And HIV/AIDs is one of the most common conditions approved for medical cannabis in most states in the US where its use is legal.
Numerous studies have confirmed that cannabis is effective in addressing side effects associated with antiretroviral medications. In fact, the FDA has approved a few cannabis-based therapies for weight loss associated with HIV. Additional research has shown that cannabis may also be effective in reducing neuropathic pain. Preliminary studies have even suggested that cannabis may impact immune system cells directly and could even stop virus replication – although these results have not been consistently reported across the literature.
Recent Study Reveals a New Role for Cannabis in HIV
In addition to the above-mentioned side effects associated with antiretroviral medications, those with HIV also experience a decline in cognitive function, a very challenging part of living with the condition over time. Some researchers believe that these cognitive difficulties may be linked to inflammation in the brain, which could result from over activation of the immune system.
Norbert Kaminski, PhD, Director of the Institute for Integrative Toxicology at Michigan State University, began studying the effect of cannabis on the immune system in the 90s and made some important discoveries on how cannabis binds to proteins in the immune system.
Recent work in his lab has revealed that HIV patients who use cannabis have significantly lower levels of inflammatory cells than patients who do not use cannabis. Thus, cannabis consumption could result in a reduction of inflammation-induced cognitive decline in those with HIV.
The Future of Medical Cannabis Research and HIV
In the wake of a cannabis research renaissance, larger-scale clinical trials are being initiated to get a bigger picture of how exactly cannabis affects patients over the long term. In fact, the most comprehensive study on cannabis and HIV is currently underway at the University of Florida (UF).
“We have a shared vision of a day when people affected by alcohol, substance abuse, mental health and HIV can have the same quality of life and health outcomes as everyone else,” said Robert Cook, MD, MPH, the study’s lead investigator and a professor of epidemiology and medicine at UF, in a press release.