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 referred to as a “graying” disease, as these 50 or older make up nearly half of infections in america.
Amongst ladies newly recognized with HIV, 19% have been ages 45 to 54, and 17% have been 55 and older, in accordance with 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 vital.
“Research have proven that early menopause may occur 5 years earlier in women with HIV than ladies with out HIV,” stated Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, a professor of drugs on the College of California, San Francisco, and director of the Ward 86 HIV Clinic at San Francisco Common Hospital/UCSF. “The explanations for this embody continual an infection, decrease estrogen ranges, continual stress response, immunodeficiency, metabolic adjustments that may happen with HIV resembling weight adjustments or insulin resistance, or continual remedy use.”
There are a variety of well being implications for girls 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 Illnesses at Bern College Hospital in Switzerland, and co-lead writer of a latest study trying on the well being implications of early menopause and HIV. “Folks dwelling with HIV have usually extra non-HIV associated danger elements resembling smoking or alcohol use. Like HIV, menopause is a danger issue for osteoporosis – that is doubtless mediated via hormonal adjustments.”
However there’s quite a bit you are able to do to remain wholesome. A brand new Canadian study 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 example. Right here’s the knowledge it is advisable to work greatest along with your physician, get reduction from menopausal signs, and hold treating HIV successfully and safely.
How Do Older Girls Contract HIV?
HIV is transmitted in the identical methods to everybody – via sure physique fluids, particularly blood, vaginal fluid, or semen. The Mayo Clinic explains that HIV is unfold via sexual contact and thru contaminated blood that enters your physique. HIV can be unfold via breastfeeding or throughout childbirth.
It is truly simpler for an older ladies than different folks to turn into contaminated with HIV via intercourse, in accordance with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health. It is because after menopause, lack of lubrication within the vagina raises the danger for tiny cuts, via 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 in the event you don’t know your standing.
What Are the Signs of HIV?
HIV.gov explains that though some folks with HIV don’t have any indicators in any respect, others can have flu-like signs, together with:
- Fever and chills
- A pores and skin rash
- Night time sweats
- Achy muscle tissues
- Feeling drained
- A sore throat
- Lymph node swelling
- Ulcers in your mouth
What Are the Signs of Menopause?
Some signs of menopause include:
- Vaginal infections
- Irregular bleeding, like skipped intervals or a change in stream
- Urinary issues
- Sexual issues
- Sizzling flashes
- Night time sweats
- Disrupted sleep
- Low temper
- Despair
- Nervousness
- Bother concentrating or remembering issues
- Joint and muscle pains
- Complications
Do Girls with HIV Have Completely different Signs of Menopause?
In brief: Sure.
“Research have proven that ladies with HIV have a higher prevalence of menopausal symptoms than ladies with out HIV even at related ages. In one large study, the commonest signs of menopause amongst ladies with HIV have been joint ache, sizzling flashes, exhaustion, and sleep disturbances,” Gandhi stated.
For those who’re HIV-positive, you may additionally discover that your intervals don’t change progressively – they may simply cease altogether abruptly.
“Girls with HIV are 3 times extra more likely to have absent intervals, 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 Medication in Baltimore.
It’s attainable, although, {that a} lack of menstruation truly has to do with one other well being challenge. A College of British Columbia review discovered that in quite a few research, HIV-positive ladies reached menopause on common between 46 and 50 years previous. Among the many ladies who reached early menopause, a excessive share had primary ovarian insufficiency (POI), which may additionally trigger intervals to cease. (Whereas POI just isn’t a situation particularly linked to HIV, each circumstances do hyperlink to osteoporosis.)
For those who cease having intervals, it is a good suggestion to ask your physician to check you for the reason for your amenorrhea, the medical time period for missed intervals. Your physician can do a biochemical confirmation of menopause so you may then deal with any troublesome signs you’re having with the correct remedy.
What Well being Adjustments Ought to You Make to Deal with Each Menopause and HIV?
It’s necessary to focus in your general well being right now. British researchers who handled HIV-positive ladies throughout their menopause transition discovered that these sufferers had a excessive price of different circumstances throughout menopause, which speaks to the necessity for girls to handle HIV at this stage of their lives. Additionally, a multi-university research team discovered that menopause is linked to immune activation in ladies with HIV. This occurs via dysfunction within the intestine microbiome and might make ladies extra more likely to have HIV problems resembling coronary heart illness and most cancers.
Ensuring you’re consuming a balanced diet is a good way to chop your danger for each of these ailments. Additionally, new research exhibits that HIV-positive ladies usually drop some weight as a substitute of gaining it at menopause. This can be resulting from a response to antiretroviral therapy (ART), which makes use of customary HIV medication. It is key that when you take your HIV remedy, you additionally get sufficient energy.
Ingesting alcohol is probably not best for you when you’ve got HIV– particularly extreme alcohol use. It’s necessary to debate whether or not you may or ought to drink alcohol along with your physician.
Altering your remedy just isn’t one thing to fret about, almost definitely.
“Until somebody is on an older antiretroviral routine containing sure protease inhibitors like fosamprenavir, or sure NNRTIs [non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors] like efavirenz, HIV drugs don’t should be adjusted,” stated Powell.
To forestall osteoporosis, ask your physician about upping your calcium consumption – a vitamin D complement could also be best for you.
You almost certainly can take hormone replacement therapy for a quick interval in the event you and your physician really feel that’s a good selection for symptom reduction.
“Menopausal signs are undertreated and HRT is under-utilized in ladies with HIV,” Powell stated.
Make the wholesome selections which are best for you – you may really feel higher than ever.
“Secure and efficient therapies for menopause can be found,” Powell stated. “With the appearance of extra tolerable and secure ART regimens, ladies with HIV live nicely into their post-menopausal years.”
