Search Here

A drug that is used to treat alcoholism recently revealed that it is capable of helping the human body do much, much more than fight addiction.

One of the biggest challenged to finding a cure for AIDS, which is caused by the HIV virus, is that the HIV virus can be dormant, making it impossible to target and kill with drugs, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Indeed, many of the current treatments for HIV force the virus to go dormant, so while it is not doing any harm, it is also able to spring back into action at a moment's notice. That is what makes this new discovery about Antabuse, a drug to treat alcoholism, so exciting.

When people take the drugs that make HIV dormant, they are saving their lives, but they also can't get rid of the virus completely. Introducing Antabuse into the equation allows the latent virus to be drawn out of cells, and because patients are already on drugs that suppress HIV, there were no negative health effects in the patients.

Now, scientists just need to figure out how to kill the HIV virus once it is drawn out of the cells.

The discovery was made by a team of researchers at Australia's University of Melbourne that was led by Professor Sharon Lewin. The researchers gave 30 patients taking drugs that repressed the HIV virus Antabuse for three days and saw the effects of the drug almost immediately, opening a new chapter in the ongoing saga of the battle against HIV.