Smoking Found to Accelerate AIDS

A British study has confirmed suspicions that smokers who are infected with HIV develop full-blown AIDS twice as quickly as people with the virus who do not smoke.

“Cigarettes and HIV together double the insult on the immune system,” said Dr. Richard Nieman, who performed the study. He is a research fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute in London.

The findings are to be published Friday in AIDS, an international science journal.

The study, conducted at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, included patients first diagnosed with the human immunodeficiency virus between 1986 and 1991. Researchers examined the medical records of 84 patients who went on to develop AIDS.

They compared 43 AIDS patients who smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day to 41 HIV-infected nonsmokers. Nonsmokers included people who had never smoked or had quit at least one year before the HIV diagnosis and had not smoked since.

Nieman said the smokers developed AIDS in about 8.2 months compared to 14.5 months for nonsmokers.

Preliminary research from his lab suggests that the AIDS virus sneaks into lung cells more easily in smokers compared to nonsmokers. Patients with HIV in lung cells tend to have a worse prognosis, he said.