Biologic aging, frailty, and age-related disease in chronic HIV infection.
OBJECTIVE
Effective therapies have transformed HIV infection into a chronic disease, and new problems are arising related to aging. This article reviews the aging process, age-related deficit accumulation and frailty, and how these might be affected by chronic HIV infection.


RESULTS
Aging is characterized by acceleration in the rate of unrepaired physiologic damage an organism accumulates. HIV infection is associated with many factors that might affect the aging process, including extrinsic behavioral risk factors and co-infections, and multiple intrinsic factors, including intercellular communication, inflammation, and coagulation pathways. Whether each factor affects the aging process, they likely result in an increase in the risk of adverse health outcomes, and so give rise to frailty, likely with several clinical manifestations.


CONCLUSIONS
Age-related deficit accumulation is influenced by both the background or environmental rate of insults an organism sustains and the efficacy of intrinsic damage control and repair mechanisms. Both processes are likely affected in people living with HIV infection.
aGeriatric Medicine Research bFaculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University cCentre for Healthcare of the Elderly, QEII Health Sciences Centre, Capital District Health Authority, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Thomas D
TD
Brothers
Kenneth
K
Rockwood
D000375:Aging; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015897:Comorbidity; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D015995:Prevalence