AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, December 20, 2004
Staff Medical Writers

"Selenium deficiency has been implicated in accelerated disease progression and poorer survival among populations infected with HIV in developed countries, yet these associations remain unexamined in developing countries.

"Among 949 HIV-1-infected Tanzanian women who were pregnant, we prospectively examined the association between plasma selenium levels and survival and CD4 counts over time. Over the 5.7-year median follow-up time, 306 of 949 women died," scientists in the United States report.

"In a Cox multivariate model," wrote R. Kupka and coworkers, "lower plasma selenium levels were significantly associated with an increased risk of mortality (P-value, test for trend=0.01). Each 0.1 mcM/L increase in plasma selenium levels was related to a 5% (95% Cl=0%-9%) decreased risk of mortality."

"Plasma selenium levels were not associated with time to progression to CD4 cell count <200 cells/mm³," investigators said, "but were weakly and positively related to CD4 cell count in the first years of follow up."

"Selenium status may be important for clinical outcomes related to HIV disease in sub-Saharan Africa," Kupka suggested.

Kupka and colleagues published their study in the Journal of Nutrition (Selenium status is associated with accelerated HIV disease progression among HIV-1-infected pregnant women in Tanzania. J Nutr. 2004 Oct;134(10):2556-60.

For additional information, contact R. Kupka, Harvard University, School Publ Health, Department Nutrition, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

The publisher's contact information for the Journal of Nutrition is: American Institute Nutrition, 9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.

The information in this article comes under the major subject areas of HIV/AIDS, Selenium, Pathogenesis, Obstetrics, and Women's Health.

This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.

Reference

Kupka R, Msamanga GI, Spiegelman D, et al., "Selenium status is associated with accelerated HIV disease progression among HIV-1-infected pregnant women in Tanzania", J Nutr. 2004 Oct;134(10):2556-60.

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