HIV Accelerates Aging by 5 Years
Four epigenetic "clock" measures, spanning from 1.9 to 4.8 years, revealed a significant age acceleration in HIV-infected individuals that was not present in non-infected individuals. (Image: An HIV-infected immunological cell.) Photograph courtesy of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) A UCLA-led study found that alterations at the DNA level can speed up aging by about five years. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles claim that HIV has a "early and substantial" impact on how quickly infected individuals age, increasing biochemical changes in the body linked to normal aging within two to three years of infection. The findings suggest that a new HIV infection may reduce a person's life expectancy by about five years when compared to someone who is not affected. Lead author Elizabeth Crabb Breen, a professor emerita at UCLA's Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences ...