October 23, 2010

HIV, alcohol topic for Brown study

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, October 24, 2010

Brown University has won a $7.5-million, five-year federal grant to study how drinking alcohol affects people with HIV.

The money, from the National Institutes of Health, will establish the Brown Alcohol Research Center on HIV, which will conduct several studies on how alcohol affects both physical health and behavior.

Peter Monti, professor of alcohol and addiction studies and director of the new research center, said both alcohol and HIV weaken the brain and the liver. Alcohol use can also make a patient less likely to follow his or her medication regimen or to abstain from unsafe sex.

“We want healthier individuals living with HIV, especially now that they are living longer,” Monti said. “We’ll hopefully determine whether people have to stop drinking or reduce their drinking.”

In one study, researchers will examine over three years the changes in brain structure, metabolism and cognitive functioning of people with HIV who are heavy drinkers or light drinkers.

Another will reach out to heavy drinkers with HIV when they show up in emergency rooms, offering them facts and feedback about their drinking. “You ask them whether they’d be interested in changing and if the answer is yes, you give them some thumbnail sketches about how they might want to go about that,” Monti said.

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