How Long Can An HIV Positive Person Live Before it’s Advance to AIDS

THE 18TH OF JUNE, 2020 (Reuters Health) — Even if they are treated with meds that make the virus undetectable, persons who are HIV positive live much shorter lives than other adults.

According to a new study, HIV positive adults aged 21 had a life expectancy of 56 years, nine years less than their virus free colleagues. According to WebMD

Even when HIV is maintained under control, a weak immune system and a higher risk of other chronic health concerns are plausible reasons.

"Our findings suggest that people with HIV who start treatment early have a similar lifespan to people without HIV, but that we need to focus more on preventing comorbidities [other chronic diseases] among HIV patients," said lead author Dr. Julia Marcus, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, was a game changer when it was launched for HIV treatment in 1996.

The drugs, when taken on a daily basis, can suppress the virus to undetectable levels, keeping individuals healthy and preventing sexual transmission. After an HIV diagnosis, the US Department of Health and Human Services recommends initiating HAART right away.

Marcus and her colleagues wanted to see if there was still a difference in life expectancy between HIV positive and HIV negative patients.

To find out, scientists looked at nearly 430,000 people's disease and death information from Kaiser Permanente between 2000 and 2016. About 39,000 people tested positive for HIV, with nearly nine out of ten being men (average age: 41).

The researchers looked at two time periods: 2000 to 2003 and 2014 to 2016.

During the first era, a 21-year-old with HIV had a life expectancy of 38 years, compared to 60 for uninfected contemporaries.

According to the paper, by 2014, the disparity has shrunk dramatically: a 21-year-old with HIV might expect to live to 56, compared to 65 for uninfected persons.

There was still a nine year gap, which the researchers noticed lessened marginally when they looked at HIV positive 21-year-olds on HAART between 2011 and 2016. As a result, the researchers looked into their chances of developing six chronic illnesses: diabetes, cancer, and liver, kidney, lung, or heart disease.

The findings were significant: a 21-year-old with HIV was unlikely to develop these diseases until age 32 between 2000 and 2003, compared to 47 years for uninfected persons. HIV-positive patients were 16 years more likely than the uninfected group to be free of such diseases between 2014 and 2016.

The gap was narrowed to nine years when the researchers focused on HIV-positive patients on HAART between 2011 and 2016.

Research show that persons with HIV who start treatment early have a similar lifetime to people without HIV, but that we need to focus more on preventing comorbidities among HIV patients.

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