At the Fifth International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference, a study was presented that found out that women who are HIV positive may experience menopause earlier than other women who are HIV negative.
With the help of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, individuals living with HIV’s life spans have drastically improved. More people than ever are living into their 50s and 60s, which is the time when most HIV negative women enter menopause. Although this is not official, researchers have discovered that HIV can speed up the aging process. With this data, there are a number of concerns that this can cause women to experience menopause younger than they usually should.
Myriam Pommerol, MD from the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Bordeaux, in France, conducted research and surveyed 404 HIV positive women between ages 19 and 79. Pommerol and her colleagues determined that 17% of the women already went through menopause, and many more were experiencing it naturally at the time. She concluded that menopause occurred in up to 72% of women ages 50 and up , 21% of women between 45-49, 3.5% of women between 40-44, and less than 1% of the time in women younger than 40.
During her almost 9 year follow up if the research, 41 of the women experienced menopause. The average age of onset was 46 years old, which is earlier and younger than women who are HIV negative. Some features that are involved with early menopause are African descent, injection drug use history, and CD4 counts fewer than 200.
The study was not completed controlled, as the researchers did not have a control group of HIV negative women, and studied past surveys rather than a scientific assessment. The study does show than HIV positive women experience menopause at an earlier stage than HIV negative women.
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