Alcohol intake and T cell aging in HIV+ humans are associated with gut bacterial burden

Preclinical and clinical studies suggest that chronic alcohol consumption leads to gastrointestinal inflammation, in part, via alcohol-associated bacterial overgrowth and microbiota acetaldehyde production. TLFB total alcohol consumption (g) and AIT (cells/μL) were positively associated with stool 16S gene copy count (p = 0.04 & p = 0.04, respectively) after correction for clinical (age, BMI, sex, ART-compliance & CD4-count) and technical (homogenization batch & sequencing depth) confounding factors. [...]TLFB and AIT were positively associated with inferred KatG gene abundance (p = 0.04 & p = 0.03, respectively) after scaling KatG gene abundance by 16S gene copy count.