insulin – a hormone that helps the body turn sugar into energy. Low insulin sensitivity is when the body uses insulin less well than usual (this is also called insulin resistance).
Glossary
Selected words and phrases
matched – in clinical trials matched refers to each group having similar age, gender, ethnicity, HIV duration, health etc in a study.
late breaker – in research, this is a study presented at a medical meeting that was submitted to the conference organisers after the main programme had been decided. There are usually only a few dozen late-breakers, where the last minute results are thought important enough to include – like ‘late-breaking news’. Although this studies often contain the most exciting news, they are given much less time to present their results – maybe less than 10 minutes compared to a normal 15 or 20 minute session. These summary results are also difficult to verify because they include fewer slides and fewer details.
HSV – Herpes Simplex Virus. HSV-1 is the virus mainly associated with cold sores on your lips or faces. HSV-2 is the virus mainly associated with genital herpes. The viruses are very similar.
T1/2 (half-life) – the time taken a drug to clear from the highest concentration to half this level. Drugs have different half-lives in different compartments (ie half-life in blood can be different from the half-life inside a cell). It take 5 x the half-live for a drug to be considered cleared.