June 27, 2023 – How does HIV have an effect on menopause?
HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, impacts the physique’s immune system and might result in AIDS if it goes untreated. HIV has been known as a “graying” illness, as these 50 or older make up virtually half of infections in america.
Amongst ladies newly identified with HIV, 19% had been ages 45 to 54, and 17% had been 55 and older, in response to the CDC. Researchers are actually analyzing the connection between HIV and menopause – and the virus’s affect on a girl’s well being may be important.
“Research have proven that early menopause might happen 5 years earlier in ladies with HIV than ladies with out HIV,” stated Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, a professor of medication on the College of California, San Francisco, and director of the Ward 86 HIV Clinic at San Francisco Normal Hospital/UCSF. “The explanations for this embody power an infection, decrease estrogen ranges, power stress response, immunodeficiency, metabolic adjustments that may happen with HIV reminiscent of weight adjustments or insulin resistance, or power remedy use.”
There are a selection of well being implications for ladies who enter menopause sooner, together with a better danger for osteoporosis as a result of their bones aren’t as dense.
“HIV is a well-studied danger issue for osteoporosis,” stated Anna Hachfeld, MD, MSCi, a senior doctor within the Division of Infectious Ailments at Bern College Hospital in Switzerland, and co-lead creator of a current examine trying on the well being implications of early menopause and HIV. “Individuals dwelling with HIV have normally extra non-HIV associated danger elements reminiscent of smoking or alcohol use. Like HIV, menopause is a danger issue for osteoporosis – that is seemingly mediated by hormonal adjustments.”
However there’s lots you are able to do to remain wholesome. A brand new Canadian examine discovered that HIV-positive ladies who’ve entry to good well being care undergo menopause at related ages to ladies who’re HIV-negative, as an illustration. Right here’s the data you must work greatest along with your physician, get reduction from menopausal signs, and maintain treating HIV successfully and safely.
How Do Older Girls Contract HIV?
HIV is transmitted in the identical methods to everybody – by sure physique fluids, particularly blood, vaginal fluid, or semen. The Mayo Clinic explains that HIV is unfold by sexual contact and thru contaminated blood that enters your physique. HIV can also be unfold by breastfeeding or throughout childbirth.
It is truly simpler for an older ladies than different folks to grow to be contaminated with HIV by intercourse, in response to the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers Workplace on Girls’s Well being. It is because after menopause, lack of lubrication within the vagina raises the danger for tiny cuts, by which the virus may be transmitted. To guard your self and others, it’s crucial to make use of condoms when you’ve gotten intercourse, and to get examined for HIV should you don’t know your standing.
What Are the Signs of HIV?
HIV.gov explains that though some folks with HIV haven’t any indicators in any respect, others can have flu-like signs, together with:
- Fever and chills
- A pores and skin rash
- Evening sweats
- Achy muscle groups
- Feeling drained
- A sore throat
- Lymph node swelling
- Ulcers in your mouth
What Are the Signs of Menopause?
Some signs of menopause embody:
- Vaginal infections
- Irregular bleeding, like skipped durations or a change in circulate
- Urinary issues
- Sexual issues
- Scorching flashes
- Evening sweats
- Disrupted sleep
- Low temper
- Despair
- Anxiousness
- Bother concentrating or remembering issues
- Joint and muscle pains
- Complications
Do Girls with HIV Have Totally different Signs of Menopause?
In brief: Sure.
“Research have proven that ladies with HIV have a greater prevalence of menopausal signs than ladies with out HIV even at related ages. In one giant examine, the most typical signs of menopause amongst ladies with HIV had been joint ache, scorching flashes, exhaustion, and sleep disturbances,” Gandhi stated.
In case you’re HIV-positive, you might also discover that your durations don’t change step by step – they may simply cease altogether abruptly.
“Girls with HIV are 3 times extra prone to have absent durations, in comparison with these with out HIV,” stated Anna M. Powell, MD MS, an assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics and co-director of the Johns Hopkins HIV Girls’s Well being Program at Johns Hopkins Drugs in Baltimore.
It’s attainable, although, {that a} lack of menstruation truly has to do with one other well being difficulty. A College of British Columbia assessment discovered that in quite a few research, HIV-positive ladies reached menopause on common between 46 and 50 years outdated. Among the many ladies who reached early menopause, a excessive share had major ovarian insufficiency (POI), which might additionally trigger durations to cease. (Whereas POI is just not a situation particularly linked to HIV, each circumstances do hyperlink to osteoporosis.)
In case you cease having durations, it is a good suggestion to ask your physician to check you for the reason for your amenorrhea, the medical time period for missed durations. Your physician can do a biochemical affirmation of menopause so you’ll be able to then handle any troublesome signs you’re having with the suitable remedy.
What Well being Adjustments Ought to You Make to Handle Each Menopause and HIV?
It’s essential to focus in your general well being presently. British researchers who handled HIV-positive ladies throughout their menopause transition discovered that these sufferers had a excessive fee of different circumstances throughout menopause, which speaks to the necessity for ladies to handle HIV at this stage of their lives. Additionally, a multi-university analysis staff discovered that menopause is linked to immune activation in ladies with HIV. This occurs by dysfunction within the intestine microbiome and might make ladies extra prone to have HIV issues reminiscent of coronary heart illness and most cancers.
Ensuring you’re consuming a balanced food regimen is a good way to chop your danger for each of these illnesses. Additionally, new analysis exhibits that HIV-positive ladies typically shed some pounds as an alternative of gaining it at menopause. This can be on account of a response to antiretroviral remedy (ART), which makes use of customary HIV medication. It is key that whilst you take your HIV remedy, you additionally get sufficient energy.
Consuming alcohol will not be best for you if in case you have HIV– particularly extreme alcohol use. It’s essential to debate whether or not you’ll be able to or ought to drink alcohol along with your physician.
Altering your remedy is just not one thing to fret about, most probably.
“Except somebody is on an older antiretroviral routine containing sure protease inhibitors like fosamprenavir, or sure NNRTIs [non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors] like efavirenz, HIV medicines don’t have to be adjusted,” stated Powell.
To stop osteoporosis, ask your physician about upping your calcium consumption – a vitamin D complement could also be best for you.
You probably can take hormone substitute remedy for a short interval should you and your physician really feel that’s a sensible choice for symptom reduction.
“Menopausal signs are undertreated and HRT is under-utilized in ladies with HIV,” Powell stated.
Make the wholesome selections which might be best for you – you’ll be able to really feel higher than ever.
“Secure and efficient remedies for menopause can be found,” Powell stated. “With the arrival of extra tolerable and secure ART regimens, ladies with HIV live properly into their post-menopausal years.”
