An older class of antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV infection can lead to premature aging, new research suggests.The researchers examined muscle cells of HIV-infected patients and found that zidovudine (AZT) and other antiviral drugs known as nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) DNA damage in mitochondria, the energy factories in cells.Study was published June 26 in the journal Nature Genetics.The findings may help explain why some HIV patients treated with antiviral drugs signs of weakness and old age related diseases such as dementia and heart disease at a young age."HIV clinic for patients who are otherwise treated successfully, but the phenomenon is much older than their age when they saw it. This conundrum," Professor Patrick Chinnery, a senior fellow in clinical science Institute of Medical Genetics at Newcastle University in England, said in a press release Wellcome Trust."DNA in the mitochondria of our copied throughout our lives, and as we get older, naturally, accumulate errors," he explained."We believe that HIV drugs is the speed at which the error build faster. So, in the space of, say, 10 years, mitochondrial DNA of humans, the same mistakes as those who by nature characteristic of the age of 20 or 30 years was developed. Surprisingly, but the fact that the patients come from the medicine many years ago may be vulnerable to these changes. "Because they are relatively inexpensive, NRTI is important for people in Africa and in countries with low incomes, says study co-author and HIV specialist Dr Brendan Payne of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Newcastle."Drugs should not be perfect, but we must not forget that when they were introduced, people give them ten or twenty years from the extra time they can die," Payne said in a news release. "In Africa, where HIV infection is becoming more expensive and where the drug is not an option, they are an absolute necessity."
