Two widely used medications may prevent heart disease in people living with HIV, an Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientist has discovered.
If confirmed through further study, the findings by Jasim Ahamed, Ph.D., could improve both the lifespan and quality of life for those with the human immunodeficiency virus.
Once an automatic death sentence, HIV today is, for most of the 40 million people worldwide who have it, a manageable chronic condition, thanks to a daily drug cocktail known as antiretroviral therapy.
However, HIV patients still face a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular disease. A 2024 study by the Journal of the American Heart Association found that people with HIV, on average, develop heart failure 10 years earlier than the general population. Specifically, people with the immune system virus that causes AIDS are prone to a type of heart failure in which the heart muscle becomes too stiff to fill with blood properly.
In two separate studies, Ahamed’s lab at OMRF used special types of laboratory mice to understand why this happens. He found that both HIV itself and certain drugs in the daily treatment regimen caused the rodents’ hearts to develop scarring and fat buildup.
This scarring acts like internal callouses, making the heart lose its elasticity. The studies pinpointed a specific protein released by blood platelets as the primary driver of this damage.
Ahamed’s research found that the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin, often prescribed under the brand name Lipitor, protected the rodents’ hearts by “calming” the platelets and inhibiting the protein that triggers scarring.
Most importantly, this benefit happened independently of cholesterol levels, which explains why statins seem to help people with HIV, even those whose “bad” cholesterol is already low.
In a separate study, Ahamed found that the drug dapagliflozin, which is approved for the treating type 2 diabetes, significantly reduced heart scarring and fat accumulation in the HIV mice. It also appeared to block pathways that tell heart cells to turn into scar tissue, effectively preserving the heart’s ability to relax and fill with blood.
“These findings provide a roadmap for protecting the hearts of people living with HIV,” Ahamed said. “By using drugs that many people already take for other reasons, we may be able to block the specific pathways that lead to heart failure.”
For both studies, Ahamed collaborated with scientists at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. He will discuss these discoveries in July during an international conference to be held in Paris.
“Dr. Ahamed’s research suggests that for people living with HIV, these drugs often do much more than their original labels suggest,” said OMRF physician-scientist Hal Scofield, M.D, who also serves as associate chief of staff for research at the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center. “They aren’t just lowering cholesterol or blood sugar; they are actively shielding the heart from the unique stresses of HIV and its treatment.”
Ahamed’s discoveries were published in the journals JCI insight and AIDS. His research was supported by grant No. 5R01HL167656 from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
