Category Archives: Research

Find out about research concerning health issues of men who have sex with men

Exactly zero men on PrEP contract HIV in 2.5-year study

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From hivplusmag.com…

Zero men on PrEP get HIV new study findsAfter two and a half years of trials, a new study has found no new HIV infections among a group of people on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). For 32 months, researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco tracked the health of over 600 people as they used Truvada daily to prevent the virus in a real-world setting.

The average age of the study participants was 37, and 99 percent were men who have sex with men. The average length of individual usage was 7.2 months. Members of this group also reported a higher likelihood of having multiple sex partners than those not using PrEP. No one in the study contracted HIV.

Lead author Jonathan Volk, a physician at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco, emphasized that this is the first time such a study has been done in a clinical practice setting at this size. The findings were published Wednesday in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a leading journal of studies on infection disease.

Continue reading.

The medical staff at the Pitt Men’s Study emphasize that PrEP is not a substitute for condoms. It should be used in addition to condoms, to further reduce your risk. It is also important to note that PrEP doesn’t protect against other STDs like syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea. To learn more about PrEP, check out the CDC’s Website. If you have questions about PrEP, you can speak to your doctor. You can also call the PrEP clinic at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center: (412) 647-0996.

Few gay teenage boys get tested for HIV

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From Medicalpress.com…

Few gay teens tested for HIVThe greatest barriers to these teenage males getting tested are not knowing where to go to get an HIV test, worries about being recognized at a testing site and—to a lesser degree—thinking they are invincible and won’t get infected.

“Understanding the barriers to testing provides critical information for intervening, so we can help young men get tested,” said study first author Gregory Phillips II, a research assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an investigator for the IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program at Feinberg.

“Rates of new HIV infections continue to increase among young gay and bisexual men,” said Brian Mustanski, principal investigator of the study, an associate professor of medical social sciences at Feinberg and director of IMPACT. “Testing is critical because it can help those who are positive receive lifesaving medical care. Effective treatment can also help prevent them from transmitting the virus to others.”

The study will be published Aug. 26 in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Continue reading.

HIV PEP with emtricitabine/tenofovir/rilpivirine has excellent completion and adherence rates

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From aidsmap.com…

Daily post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) with single tablet emtricitabine/tenofovir/rilpivirine (Complera, Eviplera) has excellent completion rates and good side-effect and safety profiles, Australian investigators report in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The open-label, non-randomised study involved 100 men who have sex with men (MSM) requiring PEP after possible sexual exposure to HIV. Treatment lasted 28 days and was completed by 92% of participants. Side-effects were mild, the most common being nausea and tiredness. There were no serious adverse events.

Prompt PEP, after possible sexual or occupational exposure to HIV, can reduce the risk of infection. Guidelines recommend triple-drug therapy, ideally commenced within 72 hours of exposure. Failure of PEP has been linked to poor treatment adherence or the premature discontinuation of treatment. A recent analysis of 97 PEP studies found that only 57% of patients completed their four-week course of treatment.

The combination pill emtricitabine/tenofovir/rilpivirine provides well tolerated and easy-to-take once-daily HIV therapy. Though it must be taken with food, investigators from Australia hypothesised that the combination pill would provide convenient and safe PEP.

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Study links homophobia with gay and bisexual men not seeking HIV-prevention and testing services

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From hcplive.com…

A Yale University study of 38 European countries’ attitudes about homosexuality has uncovered homophobia was associated with gay and bisexual men not seeking HIV-prevention services, HIV testing, and disclosing their orientation to doctors.   The authors believed their study highlighted a dangerous trend: One where men who live in more homophobic countries were not only becoming less knowledgeable about HIV treatment, prevention, and resources, but also that this demographic seemingly had more opportunities for sexual activity through “hook-up” mobile applications and websites, a Yale University statement pointed out.

For their study published in the June 19 issue of AIDS, investigators used data from the European MSM Internet Survey (EMIS), a questionnaire that delved into gay and bisexual participants’ HIV-related knowledge, behaviors, and healthcare use.

Continue reading on hcplive.com.

HIV risk among young gay, bi men tied to societal issues

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From Reuters Health…

Participants were recruited from the New York City area between 2009 and 2011 and were 18 or 19 when they entered the study. At that point they were all HIV-negative. Over the next three years, 43 participants became infected with HIV. About a third of black, Hispanic and mixed or other race participants became HIV-positive during the study, compared to about 7 percent of white participants. People who described themselves as being in low to average social and economic groups were more likely to become HIV-positive than those in higher socioeconomic groups.

Also, the authors found, young age at first sexual experience with another male was tied to an increased risk of becoming HIV-positive, compared to a first encounter at an older age. “The bigger point here is that it’s just too simplistic to (blame) everything on race,” Halkitis said. “We’re trying to get at the reason that’s happening. This paper starts to point to it.”

The researchers point out that social and economic status is closely tied to race in the U.S. People with lower social and economic status likely live in areas with more poverty, less access to healthcare and more untreated sexually transmitted infections (STI), they write. They also point out that young gay and bisexual men may not be properly educated about STIs, and their heterosexual parents may not be equipped to educate on those topics.

“I think that one way we can begin to address this issue is through comprehensive sexual health education,” said Jason Coleman, an expert on HIV and STI prevention at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Read the full article.

Social apps back in the news after Rhode Island study notes alarming rise of STDs

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From Latinos Health…

In the report by the Rhode Island Department of Health, researchers highlighted the alarming rise of STD’s in the state between 2013 and 2014, with HIV infections up by 33 percent, gonorrhea up 30 percent, and syphilis rising an alarming 79 percent.

“New cases of HIV and syphilis continued to increase among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men at a faster rate than in other populations,” the report noted, adding that “infection rates of all STDs continued to have a greater impact on the African-American, Hispanic, and young adult populations.”

While better testing partly explains the increase, health officials also highlighted “high-risk behaviors that have become more common in recent years,” such as “using social media to arrange casual and often anonymous sexual encounters.”

Read the full article.

H.I.V. treatment should start at diagnosis, U.S. health officials say

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From the New York Times…

People with H.I.V. should be put on antiretroviral drugs as soon as they learn they are infected, federal health officials said Wednesday as they announced that they were halting the largest ever clinical trial of early treatment because its benefits were already so clear.

The study was stopped more than a year early because preliminary data already showed that those who got treatment immediately were 53 percent less likely to die during the trial or develop AIDS or a serious illness than those who waited.

The study is strong evidence that early treatment saves more lives, the officials said. Fewer than 14 million of the estimated 35 million people infected with H.I.V. around the world are on treatment now, according to U.N.AIDS, the United Nations AIDS-fighting agency. In the United States, only about 450,000 of the estimated 1.2 million with H.I.V. are on treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is another incentive to seek out testing and start therapy early, because you will benefit,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, which sponsored the trial. “The sooner, the better.”

Continue reading on the New York Times.

Backlash to New York City’s fear-based HIV prevention campaign

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From aidsmeds.com…

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s recent fear-based HIV prevention campaign may have led to unintended consequences by stigmatizing young black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM). Publishing their findings in Health Affairs, researchers analyzed the 2010 “It’s Never Just HIV” campaign, which used fearful, horror-movie-like imagery and messaging to highlight health problems tied to HIV or its treatment, such as osteoporosis, dementia and anal cancer.

“Relying on fear is risky business,” the authors write in the paper. The health department came to appreciate that its analysis of the campaign’s success could not be governed simply by HIV rates among the target population. Rather, the department needed to consider the campaign’s social and political impact. Not only was there a huge amount of controversy among people in the HIV community, but according to certain criticisms, people at risk of HIV and those living with the virus may have suffered stigma as a result of the campaign.

New York City has since moved away from fear-based HIV prevention campaigns. For example, “Be HIV Sure,” which launched on World AIDS Day 2014, encourages HIV testing as part of sexual intimacy.

To read a press release on the study, click here.

People who don’t tell anyone else their HIV status have as good health outcomes as other people living with HIV

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From aidsmap.com…

[D]oes non-disclosure matter? Is it associated with poorer health outcomes? While a quantitative survey, completed on a single occasion by respondents, has some limitations in terms of the insight it can give into the quality of people’s lives and relationships, these data are reassuring.

Mental health difficulties and adherence problems were quite common among survey respondents. But they weren’t more frequently reported by people who hadn’t disclosed to anyone. After statistical adjustment for other factors that could skew the results, rates of the following were very similar in people who disclosed and people who did not:

  • Low social support.
  • Symptoms of depression.
  • Symptoms of anxiety.
  • Problems with adherence to HIV treatment.
  • A detectable viral load.

In fact, some of the data suggested that having disclosed to most or all friends and family was actually associated with poorer outcomes in gay men. A more selective disclosure strategy was associated with better outcomes.

Read the full article on aidsmap.com.

Can HIV accelerate age-related conditions?

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From MedicalExpress.com…

To answer that question, researchers at the UCLA AIDS Institute and Center for AIDS Research and the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study investigated whether the virus induces age-associatedepigenetic changes—that is, changes to the DNA that in turn lead to changes in expression of gene levels without changing the inherited genetic code. These changes affect biological processes and can be brought on by environmental factors or by the aging process itself.

In a study published online in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, the researchers suggest that HIV itself accelerates these aging related changes by more than 14 years.

“While we were surprised by the number of epigenetic changes that were significantly associated with both aging and HIV-infection, we were most surprised that the data suggests HIV-infection can accelerate aging-related epigenetic changes by 13.7 to 14.7 years,” said Beth Jamieson, professor of medicine in the division of hematology/oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and one of the study’s senior authors. “This number is in line with both anecdotal and published data suggesting that treated HIV-infected adults can develop the diseases of aging mentioned above, approximately a decade earlier than their uninfected peers.”

Read the full article.

New study shows gay and bi men twice as likely to get skin cancer

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From USA Today…

Gay and bisexual men in the United States are twice as likely as heterosexual men to get skin cancer, a new study shows.

One likely reason: Gay and bisexual men are three times more likely to engage in indoor tanning, according to the study to be presented Friday in San Francisco at a meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology.

The study suggests that anti-tanning messages, most often aimed at young women, need to be broader, says researcher Sarah Arron, an associate professor of dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco. “The primary reason that men and women engage in indoor tanning is because of the cultural association of tanning with a healthy look and overall attractiveness,” Arron says. “We need to dispel the myth of the healthy tan.”

Tanning, whether in the sun or in a tanning bed, can cause skin cancer, including melanoma, the most dangerous kind, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s office.

Diagnoses of HIV Infection in the United States 2013 is now available online

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map2From the CDC…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) annual HIV Surveillance Report titledDiagnoses of HIV Infection in the United States and Dependent Areas, 2013, is now available online [PDF 2.9MB]. The report summarizes information about diagnosed HIV infection from 2009 to 2013 representative of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and six U.S. dependent areas. Overall, HIV diagnosis rates remain stable yet disparities persist among some groups.

The report shows that the annual rate of diagnosis in the United States remained stable with 15.0 per 100,000 in 2013 compared to 15.3 per 100,000 in 2009.

Despite this, disparities persist—and in some cases—rates have increased among certain groups. As evidenced by this report and other previously released data, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM); young adults; and racial and ethnic minorities continue to bear the disproportionate burden of HIV…

Continue reading.

Study shows “it get better,” but…

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A new study released in the Journal of Adolescent Health looked at the lives of 231 LGBTQ adolescents to see if it really does get better–referencing the It Gets Better campaign launched by activist Dan Savage. After following the youth for 3.5 years, researchers at Northwest University in Chicago found that, technically, yes, “it gets better.” But the findings also suggested a more complex set of mental health issues at play for LGBTQ youth. In short, things don’t automatically get better. Early experiences of victimization were shown to have a lasting impact on later psychological functioning. As a result, researchers went on to suggest the need for interventions which decrease stigma and victimization at an early age.

You can read more about the study on  Reuters Health.

Mental health issues put gay and bi men at increased risk for HIV

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(Reuters Health) – Gay and bisexual men are at increased risk of acquiring the virus that leads to AIDS if they have mental health problems, according to a new study. What’s more, their risk of acquiring HIV increases with the number of mental health factors they report, researchers found. Past studies have found that mental disorders, ranging from depression to substance abuse, are often seen among men with HIV, but “nothing about whether these factors predict HIV risk behaviors or becoming infected with HIV,” said study leader Matthew Mimiaga, from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that some 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV. About one case in six is undiagnosed. While the CDC says only about 4 percent of U.S. males have sex with other men, they represent about two-thirds of the country’s new infections. Additionally, it’s known that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community also suffers from an increased burden of mental health problems.

When two health conditions tend to occur together in one population, researchers call them “syndemic.” For the new study in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, the researchers looked at how five conditions – depression, alcohol abuse, stimulant use, multi-drug abuse and exposure to childhood sexual violence – affect men’s risk of acquiring HIV. They analyzed data on 4,295 men who reported having sex with men within the previous year. The participants were asked about depressive symptoms, heavy alcohol and drug use and childhood sexual abuse.

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Smoking doubles risk of death for patients taking HIV therapy

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From aidsmap.com…

Smoking doubles the mortality risk for people with HIV taking antiretroviral therapy, a study published in AIDS shows. Smokers had an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease (CVD) and non-AIDS-related cancers, and the life expectancy of a 35-year-old man with HIV was reduced by almost eight years due to smoking. “Smoking was associated with a two-fold increase in mortality,” comment the authors. “More than a third of all non-AIDS related malignant deaths were from lung cancer and all deaths from lung cancer were in smokers.”

The benefits of not smoking were clear. HIV-positive non-smokers who were doing well on antiretroviral therapy had a similar life expectancy to non-smokers in the general population.

With the right treatment and care, people living with HIV can have a normal life expectancy. However, mortality rates remain higher among people with HIV compared to the background population. The reasons for this are unclear, but important causes of death among people with HIV now include smoking-related diseases such as heart and lung complaints and non-AIDS-related malignancies.

Investigators therefore wanted to determine the association between smoking and mortality risk among people taking HIV therapy.

Continue reading on aidsmap.com.

U.S. HIV ‘Treatment Cascade’ stats dismal among western nations

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From AIDSmeds.com…

Compared with other high-income Western nations, the United States fares remarkably poorly in getting people with HIV diagnosed, into stable care, on treatment and to an undetectable viral load, aidsmap reports. Researchers conducted an analysis of the “treatment cascade” figures for Australia, British Columbia (statistics for all of Canada were not available), Denmark, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Results were presented at the HIV Drug Therapy Glasgow conference in Scotland.

The estimated rates of HIV diagnosis among the countries ranged from a low of 71 percent in British Columbia to a high of 86 percent in Australia, with the United States at 82 percent. The United States had the lowest rate of linkage to care, at 66 percent, and Denmark had the highest at 81 percent. The United States had by far the lowest rate of HIV-positive people retained in care at 37 percent, with British Columbia the next lowest at 57 percent. Australia’s 76 percent care-retention rate was the highest. 

Because of the United States’ low retention figures, the remainder of the nation’s figures were also markedly lower than the other countries’. The U.S. rate of people with HIV taking antiretrovirals was 33 percent. The high for that figure was the United Kingdom’s 67 percent. The rates of viral suppression were as follows: the United States, 25 percent; British Columbia, 35 percent; France, 52 percent, the Netherlands, 53 percent, the United Kingdom, 58 percent; Denmark, 59 percent; and Australia, 62 percent.

To read the aidsmap story, click here.

To read the conference abstract, click here.

Less than half of HIV-pos U.S. Hispanics getting proper care

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From U.S. News and World Report …

Even though Hispanics in the United States become infected with HIV at rates triple those of whites, less than half of Hispanics with the virus are receiving adequate treatment, a new report finds. The report, based on 2010 U.S. government health data, finds that while 80 percent of HIV-infected Hispanics do receive care soon after their diagnosis, only about 54 percent continue that care and only about 44 percent receive the virus-suppressing drugs they need to stay healthy.

The researchers, led by epidemiologist Zanetta Gant of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also found that only 37 percent of the more than 172,000 HIV-positive Hispanic adults in the United States have the virus under control. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. The findings “underscore the need for enhanced linkage to care, retention in care, and viral suppression for Hispanics or Latinos,” Gant’s team writes in the Oct. 10 issue of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Continue reading on U.S. News and World Report.

More than half of gay and bi men haven’t been asked by a doctor to take an HIV test

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Find free HIV testing locations near you by entering your zip code at http://hivtest.cdc.gov

Find free HIV testing locations near you by entering your zip code at http://hivtest.cdc.gov

From the New York Times…

Gay men and their doctors aren’t talking enough about sex, and that’s making it harder to control the spread of H.I.V.

That’s the conclusion of a new survey of gay and bisexual men by the Kaiser Family Foundation released on Thursday. It found that 47 percent of the men have never discussed their sexual orientation with their doctors, and 56 percent have never been advised by a doctor to be tested for H.I.V.

For decades we’ve been hearing that H.I.V. is not a gay disease, and that’s true globally, but it’s a misrepresentation of the epidemic in the United States. That misunderstanding can lead to a complacency that furthers its spread, public health officials warn. A majority of new infections occur among men who have sex with men. Kaiser estimates that 12 to 13 percent of gay and bisexual men in the United States are living with H.I.V., more than 20 times the rate among the general population.

“It’s in the highest bracket of prevalence that you see in some of the hardest-hit countries in sub-Saharan Africa,” says Jen Kates, Kaiser’s director of global health and H.I.V. policy. “It’s not that America shouldn’t care about H.I.V., but that gay and bisexual men should care more.”

Continue reading on the New York Times online.

Only 1 in 5 doctors offers routine HIV screening for patients

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From Edge on the Net…

A new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis shows that while most primary care physicians offer regular, routine HIV testing to gay and bisexual men, only 1 in 5 provides routine screening for all patients.

“Testing remains an important HIV prevention tool. It is the first step toward ensuring that those living with HIV get the treatment and care they need to protect their health and reduce their likelihood of transmission. Yet the majority of Americans have never been tested, and nearly 1 in 6 people who are HIV-infected do not know it,” writes the CDC in their analysis.

The CDC recommends that everyone be tested at least once — and for gay men, at least once a year — to ensure those living with HIV get the care and treatment they need to protect their health and reduce the likelihood of transmission.

Young people with HIV respond well to human papillomavirus vaccine

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aidsmap.com reports…

The quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine worked as well for teens and young adults with HIV as it did for their HIV-negative counterparts, according to study findings presented the 20th International AIDS Conference last week in Melbourne.

Human papillomavirus is a common sexually transmitted infection that causes abnormal cell growth. High-risk strains, including type 16 and 18, can cause cervical and anal cancer. People typically become infected with HPV shortly after they become sexually active, regardless of HIV status. But HIV-positive people tend to harbour more HPV types, are less likely to spontaneously clear HPV and may experience faster disease progression from dysplasia (abnormal cell changes) to cancer.

Continue reading on aidsmap.com