Photograph provided by the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami showing, from left, Doctors Marie Alcaide, Margaret Fischl, and Deborah Weiss. EFE/Jorge R. Perez/Courtesy of the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami/EDITORIAL USE ONLY
August 4, 2019 9:36 AM
Miami — Three scientists, one of them Spanish, are leading a new study on the aging of HIV carriers in the United States, with the aim of helping to reduce the already narrow gap between their life expectancy and that of the rest of the population.
“The goal is to learn more about what happens to people with HIV as they age,” María Alcaide, a Spanish infectious disease expert at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami, told EFE.
One of the main objectives is to understand why carriers experience a range of non-infectious diseases at earlier ages than other people.
More than 30 years ago, when the AIDS epidemic broke out, life expectancy after a person was diagnosed with the disease was only one or two years, something that has changed radically with the increased effectiveness of antiretroviral drugs.
For that reason, the number of infected people aged 55 and over is increasing in the US and other countries where there is access to these treatments.
“Right now, medications keep the virus well controlled and people are living quite a long time,” said the researcher, originally from Madrid.
Life expectancy is "getting closer" to that of people who are not HIV-positive, provided the virus is diagnosed early and treatment is started as soon as possible, he explained.
However, he pointed out that what is known so far is that people with HIV "develop non-infectious diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases (such as diabetes and hypertension) and different types of cancer earlier."
These “comorbidities” appear earlier than in people without HIV, and the purpose of the study will be to delve deeper into these problems.
Alcaide and his colleagues Margaret Fischl and Deborah Jones Weiss will conduct the research over the next seven years with a $14 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The three researchers will monitor approximately 8,000 infected individuals, both men and women.
Alcaide indicated that the leading cause of death among those carrying the virus is cardiovascular disease, apparently due to a "combination" of HIV and social factors, such as smoking, which is "quite common" among these patients.
It is estimated that there were 1.1 million people with HIV in the US at the end of 2016, the most recent year for which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases information, and in which 15,807 people died from this condition.
According to the CDC, 26% of those infected with HIV in the U.S. in 2013, whether diagnosed or not, were 55 years of age or older.
The HIV expert said that there are many studies on the control and prevention of new infections with the virus, but that more needs to be known about carriers.
“With this type of study, we can focus primarily on people who are already infected and how they will live the rest of their lives, especially as they age,” he explained.
According to Alcaide, one of the main things they will learn is whether the "management guidelines" for these non-infectious diseases need to be different from those for the general population.
"They may have to be different, it may have to be earlier or handled in different ways to ensure that people with the virus have the same life expectancy and live healthy lives," he emphasized.
The study is being conducted in South Florida, where demographic diversity also represents an advantage for this type of research.
Alcaide said the research will be based on the “combination” of the follow-up that several university centers have done in the last twenty years on 4,000 men and about 3,500 women, carriers of AIDS throughout the country, to which they will add representatives of minorities from South Florida.
He explained that the added diversity, “women, men from African American and Hispanic minorities, and men who have sex with men”, makes it possible “to learn more about how the virus affects.”
“The highest number of new infections occur in minority communities; South Florida is one of the regions with the highest incidence of new HIV cases in the country,” he emphasized.
According to the CDC, 38,739 people received an HIV diagnosis in 2017 in the country; 43% were African Americans, 26% were Latinos, and 26% were white.
66% of those diagnosed were men who had sex with men and 6% were people who used syringes to inject drugs.
Alcaide emphasized that the UM has a "great track record" in HIV research from the first cases and treatments, as well as in the mental health management of these patients.
From: https://www.hoylosangeles.com/efe-4037068-15659735-20190804-story.html