Cocktails of drugs widely used to treat infection with the AIDS virus appear to stop brain damage caused by HIV as well, researchers reported.
Writing in the journal Neurology, the researchers said their study also pointed to a way to measure this progressive brain damage when it does occur, Reuters said.
The AIDS drugs combinations, known as highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART, suppress the virus but do not remove it completely from the body. Patients are not cured but their immune systems are not as badly damaged as untreated patients.
HIV can also attack the brain and nerves. Before HAART was available, about 20 percent of people with AIDS developed dementia. But not all of the drugs used in these mixtures get into the brain, so it was not clear how much they helped.
Dr. Asa Mellgren of Goteborg University in Sweden and colleagues studied 53 men and women infected with HIV. They tested their cerebrospinal fluid, then gave them HAART for one year.
Before treatment, 21 of the patients had high levels of a protein called neurofilament light protein, which was believed to point to brain damage.
After three months of taking HAART, those high levels of protein fell to normal levels in nearly half of the patients. After one year of treatment, only four people still had high levels of the protein, they reported.
All but one of the patients with normal levels remained normal for the year.
“This type of treatment appears to halt the neurodegenerative process caused by HIV,“ Mellgren said in a statement.
“This study confirms that neurofilament light protein serves as a useful marker in monitoring brain injury in people with HIV and in evaluating the effectiveness of HAART.“

Scientists think they are close to solving the mystery over why Saturnian moon Iapetus has a two-tone appearance.
The satellite has a black surface facing in the direction it travels, and a white surface bringing up the rear, BBC reported.
New data from the Cassini spacecraft seems to confirm Iapetus is picking up dusty material on its bow front.
But, say the mission’s scientists, this material is then being warmed by the Sun’s rays, making it go even darker as it loses water vapor.
With this vapor then depositing itself as ice on whiter, colder areas of the satellite, there is a process in play on Iapetus which turns up the contrast--the dark, dirty regions get even darker; and the light, icy regions get lighter.
Researchers say they still have some way to go to fully understand what is happening at this remarkable moon.
There is still a good deal of debate over where the dark material comes from. Some have suggested it originates on Iapetus itself; but many believe it is derived from other Saturnian moons, such as Phoebe, which have shed material.
Because Iapetus keeps the same face pointing in the direction of travel in its orbit, it is prone to pick up this material on just one side--like “bugs on a windshield“.
Cassini has also offered new insights into Iapetus’ other distinctive feature - the ridge that runs a near full circumference, giving the moon the appearance of a walnut in space.
Observations show the mountain ridge cannot be a young feature because it is pitted with craters. It is also too defined, say scientists, to be the result of a ring that has collapsed on to the surface.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency (Asi).

Consuming large amounts of raw garlic may be good for your heart, but not necessarily your social life. So, how do we best enjoy these pungent little bulbs, without missing out on their impressive health benefits?
Crush them. Then bake them slightly. That’s according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and collaborators in Argentina.
Researchers have known for some time that garlic--like its close relative, the onion--is a rich source of heart-protective compounds called thiosulfinates. These sulfur compounds, best known for causing eyes to water, may lower blood pressure and break up potentially harmful clusters of platelets in the bloodstream.
But, up to now, most researchers and nutritionists assumed that the best way to seize on garlic’s cardiovascular benefits was to eat the small bulbs in their most unfettered form: in the raw, according to Science Daily.
Since most people worldwide sautŽ or bake their garlic before eating it, the researchers wanted to know if cooking reduced garlic’s blood-thinning effects. They also wanted to see what impact crushing the garlic before cooking had on its ability to bust up artery-clogging platelets.
After boiling, baking and microwaving both crushed and uncrushed cloves of garlic and evaluating them for their antiplatelet activity, the scientists learned that lightly cooked, crushed garlic provides most of the health benefits found in raw garlic. The only exception was microwaving, which stripped garlic almost entirely of its blood-thinning effects.
The researchers contend that while heating might be generally blamed for reducing garlic’s antiplatelet activity, it’s the crushing that enables the beneficial compounds to be freed in the first place.