Abstract
Most studies of psychosocial predictors of disease progression in HIV have not considered norepinephrine (NE), a neurohormone related to emotion and stress, even though NE has been related to accelerated viral replication in vitro and impaired response to ART. We therefore examine NE, cortisol, depression, hopelessness, coping, and life event stress as predictors of HIV progression in a diverse sample. Participants (
n
= 177) completed psychological assessment, blood draws (CD4, viral load (VL)), and a 15-hour urine sample (NE, cortisol) every 6 months over 4 years. HLM was used to model slope in CD4 and viral load controlling for ART at every time point, gender, age, race, SES, and initial disease status. NE (as well as depression, hopelessness, and avoidant coping) significantly predicted a greater rate of decrease in CD4 and increase in VL. Cortisol was not significantly related to CD4, but predicted VL increase. To our knowledge, this is the first study relating NE, in vivo, to accelerated disease progression over an extended time. It also extends our previous 2 year study by relating depressed mood and coping to accelerated disease progression over 4 years.
