Marijuana may be a new way for HIV patients to ease their pain, according to early results of an LSU Health Sciences Center study.The study examines the effects of marijuana on nonhuman primates with simian immunodeficiency virus — the primate equivalent of HIV — and the results are surprising, even to the researchers.”In general, what we are seeing is that not only are animals not dying faster, but it looks like [the marijuana] is being protective,” said Patricia Molina, head of the physiology department at the HSC and principal investigator for the study.The effects of HIV are not being stopped or reversed, but slowed, said Peter Winsauer, a pharmacology professor studying behavioral effects in the project.The idea for the study came from a similar project on the effects of alcohol on HIV, which showed alcohol consumption inhibited the immune system’s ability to fight the virus. Molina wondered how alcohol and drug use would affect HIV patients.Molina said she expected the effects of marijuana to be similar to alcohol. She hypothesized negative effects in immune system function, metabolism and brain function. The HIV effects, instead, seemed to slow based on the mysterious “protective” effect.”What we hypothesized is being negated by what we’re doing,” Molina said. “It is a very surprising finding.”Marijuana has been shown in the study to alleviate nausea and increase the usually low appetite of HIV patients in the “classic sense of the munchies,” said Winsauer.The final concern was how brain function would be affected.”If you smoke marijuana, you can’t memorize things,” Molina said. “If I gave you a test, your ability to respond would be impaired.”But Winsauer said the study has shown a tolerance can be built to the brain impairment.”Animals got tolerant to the cognitively disruptive effects of marijuana, but they didn’t become tolerant to the protective effect,” he said.The study results have not yet been peer reviewed or published. Winsauer said he doesn’t expect data trends to change during that process, but more research may be required before the team can make certain claims.Winsauer said the findings could eventually be used to develop an HIV treatment, but that is in the distant future after further testing. There could be clinical trials on humans in five years, he said, but there is a problem to be addressed — gender. The study is being conducted with only male primates.”Traditionally, you worry about estrogen-cycling females and how estrogen may affect drug use,” Winsauer said. “We’re worried that we might not achieve the same effects in females.”Molina said to develop a treatment, researchers must determine why the virus is being slowed and where in the body it is happening.”We have to figure out where this is happening, like in the immune system, liver or muscles, then what specifically we would have to do to modify the drug to target that tissue,” Molina said.Medical marijuana laws differ from state to state, but it is not legal in Louisiana, said Amy Ladley, political communication graduate student who teaches and specializes in drug policy. President Obama’s stance on the issue is to leave it for states to decide as long as people distribute and use medical marijuana in a legal fashion, Ladley said.Ladley said she thinks it will take a while for traditionalist states like Louisiana to warm up to the idea, but studies like this one could help.”Studies that are done using sound methodology and reputable health professionals and researchers are always better than what is packaged as the ranting of interest groups,” she said.
 
 
 
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