14 DAY TRIAL // The worrying conclusions of a new research indicate HIV medication to be responsible for the onset of premature aging. The connection has been observed primarily in Africa, but also in low-income countries on other continents.
In a paper appearing in the pages of the top scientific journal Nature Genetics, experts indicate a specific class of antiretroviral medication – nucleoside analogue reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) – as being responsible for triggering the devastating side-effect.
These drugs are apparently capable to attacking the mitochondria inside cells directly. These tiny structures are commonly referred to as the power plant of the cell. This is where adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is formed.
ATP is the basic energy currency of the body. Hampering with its production puts additional strain on the organisms, eventually forcing it to age ahead of its time. The new discovery may help explain a lot of the results experts studying HIV/AIDS patients found.
For instance, people with the diseases, and who are treating with antiretroviral drugs, tend to develop cardiovascular diseases and dementia (conditions usually associated with old age) when they are very young. Advanced signs of frailty are also discernible in many patients.
The most commonly-known NRTI is Zidovudine (AZT). These chemicals were the first to be developed by experts trying to fight the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).
In their time, NRTI boosted life expectancy for patients considerably, and they also contribute to the reclassification of AIDS in the eyes of many from a terminal to a chronic disease. But these drugs are now rarely used in North America, Europe and other high-income areas.
When taken over a long period of time, they produce great toxicity and side-effects, and so doctors prefer to avoid them. But people in poor areas do not have the luxury of selecting their drugs, Science Blog reports.
“HIV clinics were seeing patients who had otherwise been successfully treated but who showed signs of being much older than their years. This was a real mystery,” says Newcastle University Institute of Genetic Medicine professor Patrick Chinnery.
“But colleagues recognized many similarities with patients affected by mitochondrial diseases – conditions that affect energy production in our cells – and referred them to our clinic,” adds the expert, who is a Wellcome Senior Fellow in Clinical Science at the Institute.
He explains that NRTI simply boost the rate at which mitochondria accumulate copy errors naturally. The process takes place as the body ages, and is a direct function of the aging process. But these drugs caused mitochondria to accumulate considerably more errors over a 10-year period than normal.