Marijuana ingredient ‘could be used in HIV therapies’

HIV sufferers could see benefit from treatment using a compound commonly found in marijuana, according to research from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.

A  team from the New Orleans facility has found evidence that chronic intake of THC – the primary psychoactive ingredient found in the narcotic – can protect critical immune tissue in the gut from the damaging effects of HIV infection.

Long-term THC administration was associated with greater survival of T-cell populations and reduced overall cell death in the gut among simians used for research. The new study provided evidence to support previously-observed trends.

It is hoped that this discovery could pave the way for the development of new methods of slowing disease progression among HIV patients.

Dr Thomas Hope, professor of cell and molecular biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, at Chicago's Northwestern University, said: "To better treat HIV infection, we need a better understanding of how it causes the disease we call AIDS. We also need alternative approaches to treatment."

At the end of 2012, there were an estimated 98,400 people in the UK living with HIV, with more than one-fifth of these not knowing they were infected.