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October 15, 2008 10:19:59 PM CDT

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AIDS Patients Are Living Longer, but Getting Sicker

Posted Jan 6, 08 6:02 AM CST in Science & Health 

(Newser) – Revolutionary drug cocktails mean AIDS sufferers are living much longer, but as they age they're suffering from medical problems that significantly lower the quality of those extended lives, the New York Times writes. AIDS survivors are struggling with illnesses usually associated with much older people, including cancers, kidney failure, lung problems and depression, doctors are finding.

Research is just beginning but experts think the combination of damaged immune systems plus side effects from the drugs is overwhelming patients' bodies. “You folks are the first to go through this and we’re learning as we go,” a care worker told a patient, 59, who's suffering far more severe health problems than his 84-year-old father.

Source New York Times

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A woman turns away after viewing a painting by British artist Damien Hurst entitled ' HIV Aids, Drugs Combination ' at Sotheby's auction house in London, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007. Drug treatment has extended...   (Associated Press)
Visitors walk among panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark. An AIDS diagnosis once meant the patient couldn't expect to be alive much longer. That has...   (Associated Press)
Antiretroviral drugs mean AIDS patients can live much longer lives than they could have expected years ago, but doctors say the combination of the drugs' side effects and damaged immune systems is hitting...   (Shutter Stock)
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