8. People With HIV Growing Older
The advent of effective antiretroviral treatment led to a dramatic reduction in mortality and a rise in the age of the HIV population. Today, nearly half of all people living with HIV in the United States are 50 or older. As deaths due to AIDS-related causes have dropped, HIV-positive people are now facing a host of age-related conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, that appear to occur at younger ages compared with HIV-negative people. This may be due to chronic inflammation even in people with well-controlled virus as well as the lingering effects of the more toxic early antiretrovirals. In recent years, the needs of long-term survivors are increasingly being recognized.
