People with HIV are more likely to develop heart disease

A study in the US showed that people with HIV had a 48% chance of having a heart attack.

Current treatments can help people living with HIV live longer. Therefore, researchers are now focusing on the health problems that patients experience after infection, such as heart disease.

The object of the study is 82,000 veterans in the US, mostly men. 1/3 of these people are infected with HIV.

2,880 candles are lit during the Day event
World AIDS in Jakarta, Indonesia on December 1, 2009

In 6 years, 871 people suffered a heart attack and 176 of them died.

The team found that HIV-infected veterans are more prone to heart attacks than non-HIV-infected veterans, aged 40, 50 and 60.

After considering other factors that may increase the risk of heart attack such as high blood pressure, diabetes, drug addiction and alcoholism, the research team noted the risk of heart attack in HIV-infected individuals of 48. %

The cause may be due to the HIV disease itself associated with antiviral drugs used to treat this disease.

It is a very complicated mechanism and we are still investigating, Reuters quoted Matthew Freiberg from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pennsylvania in the US state, who led the study.

The study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine.