Subjects: We examined the serum haptoglobin (Hp) levels in 52 HIV-1 infected patients at our hospital. Fifteen of them were hemophilic, and 37 of them had been infected by sexual contact.
Results: Twenty-two of the 52 cases (42.3%) demonstrated a lower Hp level than normal. Furthermore, the Hp level in 14 cases (26.9%) had decreased to levels lower than the measurement sensitivity. Only one of the patients, whose Hp values were less than normal, showed a weakly positive finding for Coombs direct test. We recognized neither an overt decrease of hemoglobin nor an overt increase in the number of reticulocytes in the patients whose Hp values showed less than normal values. We therefore concluded that hemolytic anemia including autoimmune hemolytic anemia was not related to a decrease in the Hp levels. We found a significant decrease with Hp levels in patients who were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). We also found a significant decrease in the Hp levels during ART even in patients with an HIV-1 infection and without hemophilia or hepatitis C. We measured the Hp levels before and during ART in 6 cases, and thus recognized a significant reduction in the Hp levels during ART. IL-4, which can affect Hp production, was not found to be related with the observed decrease in the Hp levels.
Conclusion: We concluded that ART induced the decrease of Hp. The cause of the decrease in the Hp level by ART is unknown, but it might promote arteriosclerosis by lipodystrophy because of breakdown in the Hp's defense mechanism for the vascular disorder.

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Objective: Since the number of people infected with sexually transmitted disease (STD) in Japan are now increasing that especially among adolescents, sex education for young people including before puberty seems to be becoming more important. Although major part of sex education in Japan has been conducted in a school-based manner, it is not well known whether family-based sex education of children by their parents has been carried out in their home. Therefore a survey of family-based sex education for students were conducted.
Methods: A questionnaire survey was given to new students in Saga Medical School and their parents. They were asked about their knowledge of STD including HIV/AIDS and family-based sex education carried in their home by parents.
Results: Although most parents thought family-based sex education was important, only 38.6 percent of parents answered that they gave sex education to their children according to their growth. Their topic was restricted to the secondary sex characteristics during puberty, and education about sexual behavior, contraception, or STD including HIV/AIDS was not carried out. Accordingly most students recognized that they received sex education mainly from their school teachers, not from their parents. Parents expected that correct information about sex would be given to their children in school-based education.
Conclusions: These data suggested that parents did not actively participate in sex education for their children. We therefore propose to enroll parents to play some roles in sex education including sexuality and reproductive health for their children as a part of continuous, life-long education carried out in the home, schools, and their community.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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