NVDL: I was of the opinion that if you had AIDS you would be losing weight. A friend who is a dietician once responded to my weight loss questions saying: "Almost all of my patients are trying to gain weight, and it's incredibly difficult when they have AIDS." Although it seems like obesity is also the lot of the HIV-positive, the truth is that untreated, AIDS causes the body to waste away.
Obesity and HIV
By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer
LOS ANGELES - Early in the AIDS epidemic, people infected with the virus often lost a dangerous amount of weight, at times looking gaunt and ghostly. Today, they are facing the opposite problem. Many who have HIV, but not full-blown AIDS, are struggling with obesity, which has overtaken "wasting syndrome" as the top concern.
AIDS researchers and advocacy groups say the waistlines of HIV patients are growing right along with the girths of uninfected Americans as the disease shifts from a death sentence to a chronic condition.
Exact numbers are hard to pin down. But new research suggests that nearly two-thirds of the HIV population may be overweight or obese, mirroring the U.S. population.
Doctors say there's a growing need to screen people with the AIDS virus for obesity, which raises the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol problems.
"We used to worry that they would lose weight and become wasted," said Dr. Nancy Crum-Cianflone of TriService AIDS Clinical Consortium in San Diego. "Maybe we should redirect our concerns to making sure they are maintaining a healthy, normal weight."
About a million people in the United States are living with HIV or AIDS, federal statistics show. At the height of the epidemic, many had wasting syndrome, the uncontrollable loss of 10 percent of body weight along with other symptoms like fever or diarrhea.
A turning point in the AIDS crisis came with advances in modern medicine. Powerful drugs that keep the virus at bay also boost the body's immune system. The result is that more HIV patients are living longer than their counterparts two decades ago, and may be prone to poor eating habits and lack of exercise.
Some experts offer psychological explanations. Since the hallmark of HIV has been weight loss, some patients may be piling on the pounds to avoid looking abnormally thin.
"It's very clear now that HIV is no longer a wasting disease in America," said Dr. John T. Brooks, an epidemiologist in AIDs prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Brooks did not participate in the study.
From Yahoo.com. For more click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment