Researchers at the University of Bristol’s School of Social and Community Medicine found that early treatments and modern medicines developed over the last decade have increased life expectancy of HIV-positive people by about 15 years. But what about the quality of life during these years?
Here’s a tiny bit more about the study:
A team led by Dr Margaret May looked at the average 20-year-old starting treatment with anti-retroviral drugs between 1996-1999 and 2006-2008.
Between 1996 and 1999, the average life expectancy was 30 years. Ten years later, this had risen to almost 46 years.
The research found substantial differences in life expectancy for men and women.Between 1996 and 2008, men had a 40-year life expectancy, while women’s life expectancy was 50 years.
Sir Nick Partridge, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust HIV advocacy group said, “Of course, it’s not just length of life that’s important, but quality of life too.”
Indeed. Anti-retrovirals can cause diarrhea, liver problems, fatigue, and crazy LSD dreams because of their involvement with the central nervous system.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
So while it’s great to hear that people with HIV live longer lives these days, we still need some awareness on how those lives look and feel. It won’t only help encourage HIV prevention but also prepare HIV-positive people for the reality of the years ahead.
Image via dsb nola
Michael
Fascinating I still do not understand why a majority of the LGBT community vilifies anyone who is HIV+.
Some like Mason Wyler however do not use common sense and put their lives and others lives in danger just for the sake of sex.I think the important thing is for people to be educated about it and most of all to know that safe sex is the most responsible sex.As I have surprisingly seen on some porns before they began that some of these companies actually support safe sex and always remind people to wear a condom .But some of these porn stars and videos I believe give the wrong message in that area especially the ones when the men do not wear protection.I think that unfortunately gives out the wrong message …a dangerous message at that.Im not gonna vilify these people I just wish they would realize that sex is beautiful but not when you are having sex with stranger after stranger unprotected.
christopher di spirito
Bush/Obama have managed to squander $1.5 trillion on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Imagine how many more advances if that staggering sum had been put toward finding cures for HIV/AIDS, cancer, MS, diabetes, and Parkinson’s?
I regularly see articles online and in print where researchers lament stalled research at the phase II and phase III level because their grant money has run out and the Feds tell them the piggy bank is empty to continue forward.
It all comes down to priorities and in America, the priority was to spend $1.5 trillion to capture and kill Obama bin Laden. Curing diseases? Not so much.
Fitz
As preventable, expensive, and debilitating diseases go— HIV is small potatoes
compared to CHF, DM2 and most lifestyle related cancers.
I refuse to get upset about the cost of treating a virus when we
are spending so much to treat gluttony and sloth.
Justin
I think one of the most underreported things is that as people living with HIV are living longer, they’re not dying of complications from AIDS, they’re dying from other diseases, such as cancer. Some studies say that 50-70% of people living with HIV smoke, and the sad part is that smoking and HIV interact with each other. In other words, HIV+ smokers are likelier to get cancer, AND have more complications from their meds and more AIDS-related diseases and infections.
Food for thought.
TMikel
I have lived with HIV since 1984. In the early ’90s my life expectancy was six months to a year. Then the protease inhibitors came out and I am still alive and functioning. Yes, I have had health issues – some very serious – leukemia, lymphoma. type 2 diabetes and other problems. I take my medications faithfully and stay informed on all health issues. I am now 61 years old and I have lived far longer than I had expected to. There are many people worse off than I am.
Mitch
This would be an ideal chance for Queerty to call for a cure. Its increasingly feasible, but with articles like this which obsess over “crazy LSD dreams” and other sero-porn, instead of making a point, we’re not getting any closer.
Andy
“So while it’s great to hear that people with HIV live longer lives these days, we still need some awareness on how those lives look and feel. It won’t only help encourage HIV prevention but also prepare HIV-positive people for the reality of the years ahead
I know the author of this article got dumped by his boyfriend who struggled with Sustiva, but this is just disgusting. If you really want to help people, you’re not going to pointlessly scare them with stories about things they can’t change, especially with scare stories which MAY NOT HAPPEN. Saying that you want to “prepare them for the reality ahead” is just the sort of smug serophobic bullshit this site is famous for. For Shame, Queerty, for shame…
RLS
I just always wonder why HIV is always associated with a photo of a Black person on this site….
Tackle
@ RLS: Well look who wrote the artical…
Mitch
@Michael: Its not the “LGBT” community. I haven’t met a Lesbian who villified anyone with HIV, and relatively few Bisexuals and Trans who felt a need to pull stuff like this either. If straight men were to publicly pull the sort of crap I see from gay ones, they’d be attacked, and if straight women think this way they usually keep it to themselves. HIV stigma is overwhelmingly from gay men. Seronegative gay men should be ashamed of themselves for oversimplifying a very complex social disease which rages in their backyards, mangnifying scare stories and pretending they’re doing it as a community service to scare people straight. HIV will inevitably affect them or more than a few of their close friends. Instead of compassion or genuine concern, their reactions to it are typically filled with AIDS jokes, contrived estimates that downplay the severity of the epidemic and catty articles like this. Its beyond sick, its counterproductive, and as bad as anything the Reagan administration did to the community. Stigma and undue fear is a big part of why people with HIV don’t learn their status or wait until it has caused irreversible damage, and that is a big part of why the virus remains endemic and lethal in the gay male population.