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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2009
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AIDS Patients Are Living Longer, but Getting Sicker

Survivors hit with 'old age' health problems

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(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.

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 the lives of many patients but as they hit middle age, doctors find that they suffer...
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)
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 patients' bodies so hard that they're suffering health problems usually seen in much older people.
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)
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 changed thanks to new drugs, but doctors are finding that the survivors of the first wave...
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)
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