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HIV Infection Prematurely Ages People by an Average of Five Years
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Co-author Prof. Howard Fox, of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says:
"The medical issues in treating people with HIV have changed. We're no longer as worried about infections that come from being immunocompromised. Now we worry about diseases related to aging, like cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive impairment and liver problems."
"The 137 patients included in the analysis were enrolled in CHARTER (the CNS Antiretroviral Therapy Effects Research study), a long-term study to monitor HIV-infected individuals who are being treated with combination antiretroviral therapy."......"New research has revealed that patients with HIV experience an accelerated aging process due to epigenetic changes, which are also connected to an increased mortality risk."......"What we've seen in previous studies is that as we age, methylation across the entire genome changes," said Trey Ideker, a professor from the University of California San Diego and the study's other co-author. "Some people call it entropy or genetic drift. Although we're not sure of the exact mechanism by which these epigenetic changes lead to symptoms of aging, it's a trend that we can measure inside people's cells."
"Their data are quite robust and they have a pretty good sample size for the analyses," Dr. Jin told Medical Daily. "HIV exposure could potentially accelerate the aging process by changing the epigenetic status in the genome. While many of the epigenetic changes seemingly brought on by HIV coincided with those seen in aging, there were several unique to the viral disease. In particular, they found reduced methylation in a group of genes known as the human leukocyte antigen locus (HLA). The expression of these genes is important for regulating our immune system, and the researchers found that reduced HLA methylation predicted a lower ratio of CD4 to CD8 T-cells, a measure that predicts the strength of our immune system. In the best case scenario, that could someday mean the development of drugs that directly combat these changes in order to restore immune function and better control the infection, the authors speculated. Jin however noted that their current findings only point to an association between the two factors, not a direct cause-and-effect relationship. More likely, for the time being at least, is that the epigenetic changes could be used to track how fast the disease is progressing and allow doctors to plan ahead accordingly. "Patients deemed more likely to suffer from HIV-mediated aging effects might be placed on alternative schedules for preventive care, including early screening and further testing if warranted," the authors wrote." http://www.medicaldaily.com/hiv-premature-aging-five-years-382848
"The authors believe that drugs could eventually be developed to target the kinds of epigenetic changes that affect this population group."......"Meanwhile, the researchers call for greater awareness among people with HIV infection about the risk of developing age-related diseases. They urge patients to minimize the risks by making healthy lifestyle choices such as exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy diet and avoiding hazardous drug, alcohol and tobacco use."......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetic_clock An epigenetic clock is a type of DNA clock based on measuring natural DNA methylation levels to estimate the biological age of a tissue, cell type or organ
Co-author Prof. Howard Fox, of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says:
"The medical issues in treating people with HIV have changed. We're no longer as worried about infections that come from being immunocompromised. Now we worry about diseases related to aging, like cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive impairment and liver problems."
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HIV Infection Can Prematurely Age Patients By Five Years
Researchers from the University of Nebraska in Omaha, and the University of California in San Diego, teamed up to find out more about how chronic HIV infection affects aging, It involved a control group of 44 HIV-negative individuals. An independent group of 48 subjects, both HIV positive and negative, was used to confirm the findings......."the researchers note that such a change correlates with an increased risk of mortality of 19 percent.....I was surprised that we found such a strong aging effect.....The researchers say it's possible drugs could eventually be developed to target the kinds of epigenetic changes observed in the study. But the more immediate implications are much simpler: they note that people infected with HIV should be aware that they are at greater risk for age-related diseases and work to diminish those risks by making healthy lifestyle choices regarding exercise, diet, and drug, alcohol and tobacco use
.....Previous studies have shown that methylation alters across the genome as we age, explains co-author Trey Ideker, a professor of Genetics in the Department of Medicine at the University of California.
This is sometimes referred to as entropy or genetic drift. It remains unclear precisely how these changes give rise to the symptoms of aging, but it is possible to measure the changes within human cells.
The authors did not expect to see such a strong aging effect. They were also surprised to see that there was no difference between the methylation patterns in individuals who had been infected for under 5 years and those who had had the infection for more than 12 years."
http://www.ndtv.com/health/hiv-infection-can-prematurely-age-patients-by-five-years-1398310
April 22, 2016
New York: Although a combination of antiretroviral therapies has led to a decrease in the mortality rates in people with HIV infection, a new study has found that these patients often show signs of premature ageing.
Researchers discovered that the HIV-virus infection prematurely advances the human biological ageing process on an average by five years.
This further propels the onset of age-related diseases like cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive impairment, and liver problems, thus increasing the risk of mortality by 19 percent.
"The medical issues in treating people with HIV have changed. Now we worry about diseases related to ageing, like cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive impairment, and liver problems," said Howard Fox, professor at University of Nebraska in the US.
Researchers used methylation -- the process by which small chemical groups are attached to DNA -- as a tool to analyse the epigenetic changes in people's cells - that affect the DNA but not the sequence.
Methylation of DNA can impact how genes get translated into proteins.
There was no difference found between the methylation patterns in those people who were recently infected, that is less than five years and those with chronic infection of more than 12 years, the researchers added in the paper published in the journal Molecular Cell.
"We set out to look at the effects of HIV infection on methylation and I was surprised that we found such a strong ageing effect," said another researcher Trey Ideker, professor at University of California-San Diego.
The study included 137 patients in the analysis. Subjects who were chosen didn't have other health conditions that could skew the results.
"People infected with HIV should be aware that they're of greater risk for age-related diseases and should work to diminish those risks by making healthy lifestyle choices regarding exercise, diet, and drug, alcohol and tobacco use," the researchers suggested.
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UCSD Study / Press Release...
HIV Infection Prematurely Ages People by an Average of Five Years
Epigenetic changes also associated with 19 percent increased risk of mortality
https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2016-04-21-HIV-prematurely-ages-people-average-of-five-years.aspx
April 21, 2016 | Heather Buschman, PhD
Thanks to combination antiretroviral therapies, many people with HIV can expect to live decades after being infected. Yet doctors have observed these patients often show signs of premature aging. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center have applied a highly accurate biomarker to measure just how much HIV infection ages people at the cellular level — an average of almost five years.
The study is published April 21 in Molecular Cell.
"The medical issues in treating people with HIV have changed," said Howard Fox, MD, PhD, professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and one of the authors of the new study. "We're no longer as worried about infections that come from being immunocompromised. Now we worry about diseases related to aging, like cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive impairment and liver problems."
The tool used in the new study looks at epigenetic changes in people's cells. Epigenetic changes affect DNA structure, but not DNA sequence. Once epigenetic changes occur, they are passed down from one generation of cell to the next, influencing how genes are expressed. The particular epigenetic change used as a biomarker in this research was methylation, the process by which small chemical groups are attached to DNA. Methylation of DNA can impact how genes get translated into proteins.
"What we've seen in previous studies is that as we age, methylation across the entire genome changes," said co-corresponding author Trey Ideker, PhD, professor of genetics in UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Some people call it entropy or genetic drift. Although we're not sure of the exact mechanism by which these epigenetic changes lead to symptoms of aging, it's a trend that we can measure inside people's cells."
The 137 patients included in the analysis were enrolled in CHARTER (the CNS Antiretroviral Therapy Effects Research study), a long-term study to monitor HIV-infected individuals who are being treated with combination antiretroviral therapy. Subjects who were chosen didn't have other health conditions that could skew the results. Forty-four HIV-negative control subjects were also included in the initial analysis. An independent group of 48 subjects, both HIV positive and negative, was used to confirm the findings.
In addition to the discovery that HIV infection led to an average advance in biological aging of 4.9 years, the researchers note that such a change correlates with an increased risk of mortality of 19 percent.
"We set out to look at the effects of HIV infection on methylation, and I was surprised that we found such a strong aging effect," Ideker said.
"Another thing that was surprising was that there was no difference between the methylation patterns in those people who were recently infected (less than five years) and those with chronic infection (more than 12 years)," Fox added.
The researchers say it's possible drugs could eventually be developed to target the kinds of epigenetic changes observed in the study. But the more immediate implications are much simpler: they note that people infected with HIV should be aware that they are at greater risk for age-related diseases and work to diminish those risks by making healthy lifestyle choices regarding exercise, diet, and drug, alcohol and tobacco use.
Study co-authors include Andrew M. Gross, Philipp A. Jaeger, Jason F. Kreisberg, Katherine Licon, Kristen L. Jepsen, Mahdieh Khosroheidari, Ken Flagg, Daniel Chen, UC San Diego; Brenda M. Morsey, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Hui Shen, Van Andel Research Institute; and Kang Zhang, UC San Diego and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.
This research was funded, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (grants U24CA184427; P30MH062261, P30CA023100 and HHSN271201000030C) and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.
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HIV infection associated with premature aging
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/309374.php
While combination antiretroviral therapy can enable people with HIV to enjoy many more years of life than they might previously have expected, the same patients appear to be prone to losing an average of 5 years of life due to premature aging.
Priorities for treating patients with HIV are changing.
The results of the research, which involved the use of a highly accurate biomarker to measure biological aging, are published in Molecular Cell.
HIV is a virus that, once acquired, never totally leaves the body.
The virus attacks the immune system, increasing susceptibility to infections and disease, including infection-related cancers. Without treatment, the patient can develop AIDS.
Although there is no cure for HIV, antiretroviral therapy (ART), if correctly used, can keep the patient healthy and prolong the person's life to almost what it would have been without HIV.
Researchers from the University of Nebraska in Omaha, and the University of California in San Diego, teamed up to find out more about how chronic HIV infection affects aging.
The study involved 137 patients with HIV but no other health conditions that could bias the results. Participants were already enrolled in a long-term study to monitor people with HIV who are receiving combination antiretroviral therapy.
It involved a control group of 44 HIV-negative individuals. An independent group of 48 subjects, both HIV positive and negative, was used to confirm the findings.
Investigating methylation to uncover epigenetic changes
The team used a new tool to study epigenetic changes in people's cells. Epigenetic changes are those that alter the DNA but not the DNA sequence.
After these changes occur, they are passed down from one generation of cells to the next, influencing gene expression.
Fast facts about HIV
• Over 1.2 million people in the US live with HIV
• Almost 1 in 8, or 12.8%, are estimated to be unaware of their infection
• There are around 50,000 new infections each year.
The current research focused on methylation as a biomarker to show a specific epigenetic change. Methylation occurs when small chemical groups attach to the DNA, and it can affect how genes are translated into proteins.
Results suggest that HIV infection leads to an average advance in biological aging of 4.9 years, associated with a 19% increased risk of mortality.
Previous studies have shown that methylation alters across the genome as we age, explains co-author Trey Ideker, a professor of Genetics in the Department of Medicine at the University of California.
This is sometimes referred to as entropy or genetic drift. It remains unclear precisely how these changes give rise to the symptoms of aging, but it is possible to measure the changes within human cells.
The authors did not expect to see such a strong aging effect. They were also surprised to see that there was no difference between the methylation patterns in individuals who had been infected for under 5 years and those who had had the infection for more than 12 years.
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Evolving needs in therapy for patients with HIV
Co-author Prof. Howard Fox, of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says:
"The medical issues in treating people with HIV have changed. We're no longer as worried about infections that come from being immunocompromised. Now we worry about diseases related to aging, like cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive impairment and liver problems."
The authors believe that drugs could eventually be developed to target the kinds of epigenetic changes that affect this population group.
Meanwhile, the researchers call for greater awareness among people with HIV infection about the risk of developing age-related diseases. They urge patients to minimize the risks by making healthy lifestyle choices such as exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy diet and avoiding hazardous drug, alcohol and tobacco use.
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