An increased risk for fractures: Another cause of frailty in HIV-infected subjects

摘要

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has determined a huge decline in morbidity and mortality directly due to AIDS in HIV-infected subjects [1]. Nevertheless, a significant increase in the occurrence of several clinical conditions, such athero-thrombotic pathologies (coronary artery disease, stroke, peripheral artery disease) [2], lung [3] and liver diseases [4], cancers not related to AIDS (especially hepatocellular carcinoma, Hodgkin's lymphoma and lung cancer) [5] have been observed. In addition, a high prevalence of several cardio-metabolic risk factors, such as insulin resistance, lipodystrophy, hyperglycemia [1], hypertension [6], hyperlipidemia [1], metabolic syndrome [1, 7, 8] have been documented. All these clinical and metabolic conditions seem to be at least partially due to a direct action of HIV but over all to ART.