HIV infection linked to lower multiple sclerosis risk

HIV infection is linked to a significantly lower risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), indicates observational research published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

Chronic dampening down of the immune system as a result of the infection and/or the antiretroviral drugs used to treat it might explain this association, say the researchers.

If subsequently found to be causal, this could have considerable implications for the treatment of MS, they suggest.

Following the case of an HIV positive man with MS, whose MS symptoms disappeared for more than 12 years after antiretroviral treatment for his HIV infection, a Danish research team attempted to find out if antiretroviral drugs might treat or slow the progression of MS.

Their results suggested this might be a possibility, but the numbers were too small to reach statistical significance, prompting the current researchers to carry out a much larger comparative study.

They did this by looking at episodes of hospital care between 1999 and 2011 in England.

In all, more than 21,000 people infected with HIV were treated during this period, as were almost 5.3 million people treated for minor conditions or injuries, who acted as the comparison group.

The development of MS was tracked in all participants for seven years, with the actual number of cases arising compared with the number expected to have arisen in the population.

Compared with those who did not have HIV, those who did were 62% less likely to develop MS, based on seven actual diagnoses of MS during that period versus the 18 that would have been expected.

The degree of protection seemingly conferred by HIV increased the more time that elapsed between a diagnosis of HIV and one of MS, the analysis indicated.

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HIV infection linked to lower multiple sclerosis risk