AIDS researchers have found that smoking doubles the risk of death for people who are taking HIV antiretroviral medications (ARV’s). The findings of this research were published in the Journal AIDS where researchers analyzed data on 17,995 HIV positive people from both European and North American Cohorts. Injection drug users were excluded from analysis.
They looked at individuals who started ARV treatment between 1996 and 2008 and had about 79,760 person years of follow-up information. Sixty percent of the individuals were smokers.
Factoring in deaths from all causes, the mortality rate among smokers and non smokers was 7.9 and 4.2 per 1,000 person years respectively.
- Smokers were 1.94 times more likely to die than non smokers when compared to non smokers
- Smokers were 6.28 times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease when compared to non smokers
- Smokers were 2.67 times more likely to die from non AIDS defining cancers when compared to non smokers
It was estimated that a 35year old man on successful HIV treatment could expect essentially a normal life expectancy when compared with the HIV negative background population that served as a comparison in the study. Such HIV positive men could expect to live 78.5 years compared to 79.4 years among the background population.
If these HIV positive men smoked they could expect to loose 7.9 years off their life expectancy
It’s never too late to give up smoking! If you smoke stop today
You can read the entire story on AIDSMap here
