A recent study suggests that an older class of antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV may lead to premature aging. The study was published June 26^th in Nature Genetics.

The findings of this research help explain why some people who are receiving treatment for HIV with antiviral drugs demonstrate signs of frailty and diseases that are age-related like dementia and cardiovascular disease.

Professor Patrick Chinnery said that it is a real mystery how HIV clinics saw patients who have been successfully treated but show signs that their body are older than their age. Professor Chinnery is a fellow at the Institute of Genetic Medicine Newcastle University.

Normally, our DNA is copied our entire lifetime; but as we grow older, DNA replication accumulates errors. Chinnery explained that they have reason to believe that antiretroviral drugs accelerate the rate to which these errors occur. He added that patients who stopped taking the medications years ago are still at risk for early ageing.

Study co-author Dr. Brendan Payne said that the drugs may not be perfect but they are relatively cheap and they give patients with HIV extra 10 to 20 years. He added that this is extremely important for Africa where HIV rate is high but the resources are quite low.

Federal health officials announced on Thursday that thanks to more powerful and reliable medications, more and more HIV-infected Americans are given the chance to live healthier and longer lives; that is despite the fact that HIV is still an epidemic with no known cure.

Based on a research, by the end of 2008, there were at least 1,000,000 United States residents who are infected with HIV. Unfortunately, 20% of them are unaware that they are living with the disease. Dr. Michael Kolber, director of the University of Mimi Miller School of Medicines’ Comprehensive AIDS Program, said that there is still an increasing prevalence of HIV.

Kolber added that we have gone a long way since AIDS was first discovered 30 years ago. Back then, he said, AIDS is considered a death sentence. Now, however, thanks to HIV-supressing medications it has become more of a chronic disease because of how antiretroviral drugs have proven to be effective.

Kolber, however, said that he is still alarmed with the growing number of people infected with HIV every day. He added that people can avoid getting the disease if they wanted to; we just need to be more cautious with our sexual activities. He also said that we need to identify patients infected with HIV because that is one of the best ways to avoid the spread of the disease.

CDC said that every year, around 50,000 people in the United States are newly infected with HIV. African-Americans only make up around 12% of the population with HIV, but they make up 50% of the new infections. Kolber added that the majority of them are from the lower socioeconomic status.