The challenge of HIV in an aging population

HIV treatment has come a long way! With proper treatment and care, people with HIV can live long and healthy lives, and side effects from HIV drugs are usually mild. What’s more, HIV treatment is effective for people of all ages – it works just as well whether you are 52 or 25 years old.

However, issues associated with HIV treatment tend to get more complex with age. One reason is that the chances of having other health conditions that also require treatment, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, arthritis or cancer increase as you get older. This can mean taking several different drugs at the same time, which can raise your risk of drug interactions, side effects and toxicities. Because of these issues, it is especially important to speak to your pharmacist about all the drugs you take, to ensure the different drugs are not interacting with each other in your body.

Generally, HIV drug side effects don’t appear to occur more often in people with HIV as they age, but they can be made worse by the side effects of non-HIV drugs. Decreases in kidney and liver function that come with age can also increase the risk of drug toxicity, as can changes in metabolism and body weight associated with aging.