Good News About Life Expectancy For Young Americans With Hiv

Researchers from the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design examined the death rates among these people from the early to mid-2000s, in order to see how life expectancy increased or decreased from 2000 to 2007. Researchers found that life expectancy among HIV-positive adults taking antiretrovirals at age 20 increased dramatically, going from 36.1 in 2000 to 2002 to 51.4 in 2006 to 2007. Based on these increases in life expectancy, the researchers calculated that “a 20-year-old individual on ART today in the U.S. or Canada would expect to live into their early 70s, a life expectancy that approaches that of a 20-year-old person in the general population,” they wrote in the study. However, life expectancy was not identical for all HIV-positive people examined in the study. Researchers found that people who had a history of injection drug use, non-white people, and people who had a low CD4 count when starting antiretroviral therapy (versus a high CD4 count) had a lower life expectancy. You will find the original content at this website http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/19/life-expectancy-hiv-young-adults-americans_n_4461956.html

Source: aids-write.org - December 20, 2013 Category: HIV AIDS Authors: aidswrite Tags: current news hiv Source Type: blogs