Get to Know Your Words: HAART
HAART Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy became the standard of HIV care in 1997 because it is a customized cocktail of medications that controls viral load and delays or prevents progression to AIDS.
Word Wednesday
Join us weekly for Word Wednesday! Word Wednesday (WW) is a weekly educational blog that provides accessible definitions for complex public health and medical terms. WW thoughtfully identify single words, acronyms, and phrases that can sometimes be misunderstood or misused. The goal of WW will be to assist in providing a better understanding of words and phrases regularly used in our community-based work. Words, after all, are a powerful tool and with Word Wednesday we hope to share in the beauty that is words!
Get to Know your words: Generic Drug
Generic Drug: A drug that uses the same active ingredient as a brand-name drug once the brand patent has expired; often costs less.
Get to know your words: Brand-name drug
A drug sold by a drug company under a specific brand name with an exclusive formula patent for a period of time,
Get to Know Your Words: Metastatic Breast Cancer
Also called Stage IV Breast Cancer, it is when the cancer has spread from the breast to other areas of the body, like bones, brain, lungs, or liver.
Get to Know Your Words: Immunocompromised
A weakened immune system, making it more difficult to fight off infections and other diseases. May be caused by diseases or conditions, genetic disorders, or specific medical treatments.
Get to know your words: Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)
Sometimes called domestic violence, IPV includes physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, as well as sexual coercion and stalking by a current or former intimate partner.
Get to know your words: SSRI
Stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake inhibitor: this is a category of common antidepressant medication that increases the amount of time serotonin is active in your brain.
Get to know your words: Angina
Noun: chest pain that occurs when blood vessels restrict blood flow to the heart.
Get to know your words: Systolic blood pressure
Noun: the top number of a blood pressure reading.
Get to know your words: Diastolic blood pressure
Noun: the bottom number of a blood pressure reading.
Get to know your words: Prostatectomy
An operation to remove part or all of the prostate. Radical (or total) prostatectomy is the removal of the entire prostate and some of the tissue around it.
Get to know your words: Influenza
Woo, #WordWednesday is here! Our word of the week is influenza, commonly known as the flu. influenza is a highly contagious viral infection of the respiratory passages causing fever, severe aching, and catarrh, and often occurring in epidemics (flu season). The best way to avoid getting the flu this year? A flu shot! Every year the CDC…
Get to know your words: Periodontitis
It is #WordWednesday again! Our word of the week is Periodontitis. Periodontal disease or periodontitis is a disease that affects the structures around teeth – the gums. It is one of the two main types of gum disease (alongside gingivitis). Gums become infected with bacteria and if the infection spreads, it can cause irreparable damage to your…
Get to know your words: Tuberculosis
It’s #WordWednesday! Our word of the week is tuberculosis. Tuberculosis or TB, is an infectious bacterial disease characterized by the growth of nodules (tubercles) in the tissues, especially the lungs. Are you interested in why we picked tuberculosis as our word this week? Come back on Friday for our #HealthFactFriday! An infectious bacterial disease characterized by the…
Get to Know Your Words: Microbiome
Mai- kruh- bai- owm The microorganisms in a particular environment (including the body or a part of the body). The gut microbiome plays a very important role in your health by helping control digestion and benefitting your immune system and many other aspects of health.
Get to know your words: PEP
Post-exposure prophylaxis PEP stands for post- exposure prophylaxis. It means taking antiretroviral medicines (ART) after being potentially exposed to HIV.
Get to know your words: Acetylcholine
uh- seh- tuhl- kow- leen A chemical in the brain (neurotransmitter) that appears to be involved in learning and memory- Acetylcholine is greatly diminished in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Get to know your words: Hepatitis
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. Viruses are the mosr common cause of hepatitis, but the condition can also be caused by other factors. There are five main virus types that can cause hepatitis- type A, B, C, D, and E.
Get to Know Your Words: Analytic Treatment Interruption
Analytic Treatment Interruption is the cessation of a study participant’s antiretrovital therapy (ART) while carefully monitoring their viral load. One of the goals for the HIV research field is to achieve a functional cure for HIV, the elimination of detectable virus without the use of ART. Interested in learning about HIV Cure research? Register for…
Get to Know Your Words: Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)
HIV is a type of virus called a retrovirus, and the combination of drugs used to treat it is called antiretroviral therapy (ART). ART is recommended for all people living with HIV, regardless of how long they’ve had the virus or how healthy they are. ART must be taken every day, exactly as your health…
Get to Know Your Words: Leukapheresis
Leukapheresis is a laboratory procedure in which white blood cells are separated from a sample of blood. It is a specific type of apheresis, the more general term for separating out one particular component of blood and returning the rest to the body. Interested in learning about HIV Cure research? Register for our upcoming introductory…
Get to Know Your Words: Double Blinded Study
Research studies can be quite informing but confusing! Now that you know what a blinded study is, it’s time to learn what a double blinded study is! In a double blinded study, neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving which treatment to ensure that the results are not affected by their hopes,…
Get to Know Your Words: Blinded Study
Research studies can be quite informing but confusing! Ever wonder what a “blinded study” is? It is a study done in such a way that the participants do not know what treatment they are receiving to ensure that the results are not affected by their hopes, expectations, previous knowledge, etc. in order to reduce experimental…
Get to Know Your Words: Prostatitis
Prostatitis Prostatitis is a bacterial infection of your prostate gland. The infection can be either chronic or acute. Chronic prostatitis causes a dull pressure or pain in your rectum or pelvis. What begins as dull pressure quickly turns into severe pain with chills, high fever, and an enlarged prostate that can prevent you from being able…