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People with HIV who use effective modern antiretroviral therapy (ART) and maintain a high CD4 T-cell count can expect to live nearly as long as HIV-negative people in the general population, according to study results published in The Lancet HIV. But those with a low CD4 count do not fare as well, underscoring the need to start treatment before serious immune system damage occurs. “For people with HIV on ART and with high CD4 cell counts who survived to 2015 or started ART after 2015, life expectancy was only a few years lower than that in the general population, irrespective...

A huge infusion of money for people living with HIV was announced today by the Department of Health and Human Services as part of its funding for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program. HHS will disburse $2.21 billion to cities, counties, states, and local community-based organizations in 2021; the money will fund treatment and services for hundreds of thousands of people. The 30-year-old Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program pays for HIV services for low-income Americans — or about half of all people diagnosed with HIV in the nation. “For more than three decades, HHS has driven federal efforts to end the HIV...

STUDY: People With HIV Age 14 Years Faster New study shows evidence HIV accelerates age-related diseases. HIV positive patients may be living longer, but they may also be aging faster than expected. A new study published today in PLOS One shows that HIV-positive people are at an increased risk of age-related diseases such as some cancers, frailty, osteoporosis, kidney disease, and neurocognitive disease. Researchers think that it is the HIV itself that accelerates the aging process by 14 years, rather than medications used to treat it. Scientists from the UCLA AIDS Institute and Center for AIDS Research and the Multi-Center...

People aging with HIV were 10% more likely to have two or more non-HIV chronic health conditions in 2016 than they were in 2006. Additionally, the number of people with four or five chronic conditions increased significantly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, people disadvantaged by social determinants of health, such as female sex and having public health insurance, were more likely than their male and privately insured counterparts to have multiple chronic conditions, according to the findings of a study published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is funding a study around blood donations by gay or bisexual men. ABC News reported on Tuesday that the study, Assessing Donor Variability and New Concepts in Eligibility (Advance), is underway, and aims evaluate whether donor deferral criteria can be based on individual risks assessment. The study aims to present data to the FDA by late 2021. The study could lead to the complete removal of restrictions around donations by gay or bisexual men, according to the news outlet. “The FDA remains committed to considering alternatives to time-based deferral by generating the scientific evidence...

People in Ontario living with HIV had a 34 per cent higher incidence rate of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and were diagnosed with the disease about 12 years younger than HIV-negative individuals, according to a study led by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital of Unity Health Toronto and ICES. Researchers analyzed incidences of COPD among adults 35 years and older who were living with and without HIV between 1996 and 2015 in Ontario - where over 40 per cent of Canadians living with HIV reside. People with HIV were diagnosed with COPD at a mean age of 50 years...

Article lead: Problematic use of alcohol is likely far more common among HIV-positive people than in the general population. Worldwide, alcohol use disorder (AUD) is apparently much more common among people with HIV compared with the general population. This is the signature finding of the first-ever systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence of problematic use of alcohol among HIV-positive individuals around the globe. AUD, otherwise known as alcoholism, refers to the continuous use of alcohol despite its causing harm and despite repeated attempts to cut back on drinking. Problematic drinking is of particular concern for people with HIV...

After years of back and forth, a highly cited paper that appeared to show that gay people who live in areas where people were highly prejudiced against them had a significantly shorter life expectancy has been retracted. The paper, “Structural stigma and all-cause mortality in sexual minority populations,” was published in 2014 by Mark Hatzenbuehler of Columbia University and colleagues. As we reported last year, Mark Regnerus, of the University of Texas at Austin, published a paper describing his failed attempts to replicate the study in 2016: "After Regnerus’s study, Hatzenbuehler hired a colleague at Columbia, Katherine Keyes, to try...