The long sought-after goal of a single pill once a day to treat HIV is likely to be achieved later this year. The new pill does not have a name yet, but it would combine those drugs now sold as Sustiva (efavirenz), Viread (tenofovir) and Emtriva (emtricitabine), which are made by the pharmaceutical companies Gilead Sciences and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The regimen already is one of the most popular used to treat HIV. A large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Jan. 19 shows that it is marginally better than another popular and older regimen that combines zidovudine (Retrovir/AZT), lamivudine (3TC) and efavirenz (Sustiva).

People with HIV already can take the regimen as two pills, one of Sustiva and another of Truvada, which contains tenofovir and emtricitabine. The main difference for those with health insurance will be in the wallet, where they will have to make only a single co-payment. The regimen is most effective as an initial therapy in patients who do not have a drug resistant strain of HIV. More experienced patients likely will have to add a protease inhibitor or construct an entirely different drug cocktail combination.

Supporters of HIV-drug interruptions or “holidays” were disappointed when the NIH stopped a large international trial designed to test the idea. The Strategies for Management of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (SMART) trial had enrolled 5,472 of its planned 6,000 patients before being stopped on Jan. 11.

The trial design started patients on therapy when their CD4 cell count dropped below 250. Half continued therapy uninterrupted while half were randomized to stop therapy once their CD4 count climbed above 350. The idea was to spend less time on drugs to minimize their often toxic side effects.

But the trial was stopped after about 15 months when an interim analysis revealed that those in the arm that interrupted therapy had more than twice the risk of disease progression as those who continued on therapy. Surprisingly, they also had higher rates of complications such as cardiovascular, kidney and liver disease.

Richard Jefferys, with the Treatment Action Group in New York, cautioned that the results “should not be read too broadly; they apply only to the specific strategy evaluated in this trial.” Other criteria for starting and stopping therapy, along with a longer time frame, may produce different outcomes.

Toxic side effects also may be a good reason to interrupt therapy for a period of time. PWAs should not be scared into believing that they have to continue on therapy at all costs.

A fuller explanation of data from the trial will be presented at the retroviral conference in Denver in February.

One of the great contemporary urban myths is that cell phones cause brain cancer, and one of the truisms of scientific research is that it is very difficult to disprove the negative. But a new study from the United Kingdom should allay the fears of all but the most paranoid believers in conspiracy theories.

The Institute of Cancer Research in London and three leading universities looked at regions containing about half the nation’s population over a three-year period, identifying 966 people with glioma, the most common form of brain tumor and one of the most deadly.

They conducted detailed interviews with those people, and in some instances their surviving spouses, on the frequency and duration of calls and the model of phones used. Then they identified a set of 1,716 healthy volunteers who matched those people in every way – such as age, sex, height, weight, etc. – except that they did not have glioma, and asked them the same questions.

They found absolutely no relationship between the development of glioma and the short- or medium-term use of cell phones in terms of the first use, lifetime years of use, cumulative number of calls or hours of use of the cell phone. They were hesitant to say anything about long term use because the number of persons who had used a cell phone for more than five years was small.

“Laughter is the best medicine” is a bit of folk wisdom that is proving to be true. A small study in the January issue of the journal Heart asked 20 healthy young adults to watch 15 to 30-minute segments of sad and humorous films and measured blood flow both before and after the clips, on separate days. The films included Saving Private Ryan and There’s Something About Mary.

They found that watching the stressful flick reduced blood flow in 14 of the 20 participants, while those that caused laughter increased blood flow in 19 of 20 participants. It wasn’t just a minor difference either; on average, there was a 50-percent difference between the low and the high readings.

The authors say the impact is about the same as a round of aerobic exercise or starting on a statin drug to help control blood pressure. Proper blood circulation is important to the good health of all tissues.

The Archives of Internal Medicine chimed in with another way to reduce your blood pressure – eat your vegetables. The study involved 4,680 middle-aged men and women in four countries who had their blood pressure taken at four different visits to the clinic over a three to six-week period. They also wrote down everything they had consumed in the 24 hours immediately preceding their visit and gave a urine sample.

Those who ate more vegetable protein and less animal protein had lower blood pressure than those whose diet was the reverse. It confirms that a diet high in vegetable products is part of a healthy lifestyle.