Success of AIDS Drugs Means More Middle-Aged Americans Living With HIV/AIDS

Success of AIDS Drugs Means More Middle-Aged Americans Living With HIV/AIDS

Today's modern antiviral therapies mean that people with HIV and AIDS are living relatively normal life spans. HIV destroys a type of white blood cell that helps your body fight disease, weakening your immune system and, if left untreated, eventually resulting in AIDS. By 2015, more than half of HIV-positive Americans will be over 50. "There are a lot of people with HIV who are 60 or 65 and even 80 or 85," points out Dr. Amy Justice, an HIV researcher who stresses the need for healthcare professionals to educate themselves on the health and social issues impacting seniors with HIV and AIDS.

Aging HIV survivors are posing an increasing challenge to our health care system. "A 55-year-old with HIV tends to look like a 70-year-old without HIV in terms of other conditions they need treatment for," says Daniel Tietz, executive director of the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America. A recent study of 1000 HIV and AIDS patients aged 50 and over discovered that 91% of them had other chronic medical conditions such as hepatitis, arthritis, neuropathy (nerve damage), and high blood pressure. Over three-quarters of them had two or more medical conditions. They also reported higher levels of loneliness and depression than the average population their age.

The situation is compounded by the fact that new AIDS cases are rising faster in the over 50 population than in people under 40. Eleven percent of new AIDS cases are in people over the age of 50. Heterosexual transmission in men over 50 is up a shocking 94%, and the rate in women has doubled since 1991. Heterosexual sex and needle sharing among IV drug users are the main methods of transmission in older adults. Frighteningly, it's estimated that nearly half of the Americans who are currently HIV positive don't know it, and this appears especially true of older adults, many of whom still accept the stereotype of AIDS as a young gay man's disease.

While we now have effective HIV therapy that drastically slows the progression of the disease and allows victims to remain symptom-free for years, we still don't have a cure. HIV drugs merely slow down the multiplication of the virus. The first HIV drugs, reverse transcriptase inhibitors, are still being used today, along with newer classes such as such as the groundbreaking protease inhibitors. Each class blocks the virus in different ways, so HIV medication guidelines recommend combinations of three or four HIV drugs. For that reason, many HIV medications combine two or more HIV drugs into one.

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