Comparison of total antioxidant capacity level in patients with HIV/AIDS and healthy individuals

Aim: The primary aim of this study was to analyze differences in total antioxidant capacity (TAOC) levels in patients with HIV/AIDS compared with healthy individuals. The secondary aim of this study was to investigate factors that may contribute to the TAOC level in patients with HIV/AIDS including viral load, CD4 counts, and oral lesions. Materials and Methods: This research was a cross-sectional study. Fifty-eight samples from patients with HIV/AIDS and healthy individuals were calculated using the purposive sampling method. The TAOC level from the stored biological material was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) with the colorimetric method. The data were analyzed statistically using the chi-square to see the difference in TAOC levels between HIV and healthy individuals. Spearman's correlation test was used to analyze the correlation between TAOC and other contributing factors. Results: The serum samples were collected from 35 patients with HIV/AIDS (74.3% men and 25.7% women) and 23 healthy individuals (65.2% men and 34.8% women). The samples were mostly obtained from healthy individuals aged 25-34 and 35-44 years old with a 47.8% and 37.1%, consecutively. Similarly, the HIV/AIDS samples are also dominated by the same age group which shares the exact percentage of both groups (37.1%). The TAOC level in patients with HIV/AIDS was lower significantly than the healthy individuals (P < 0.05). However, the TAOC level had a very weak statistical correlation with viral load (P = 0.03), CD4 (P = 0.46), and oral lesions (P = 0.44). Conclusions: In this study, the TAOC level in patients with HIV/AIDS was lower than the healthy individuals, and did not correlate to the number of viral loads, CD4 cell count, and oral lesions of patients with HIV/AIDS.