PLWH and their doctors need to be updated re the risks...
HIV patients are mentally and physically challenged because of living with a disease which can be fatal yet the leading cause of death among PLWH is not AIDS but heart disease which can be prevented by treating the underlying conditions such as lipodystrophy. Egrifta SV(F4)for now and hopefully soon replaced by Egrifta MDV(F8)is and will be the only approved drug in the US for reduction of the metabolic active visceral fat among PLWH suffering from lipodystrophy. It is crucial that uneducated doctors and patients are aware of the risks/conditions associated with the long term usage of antiviral such as lipodystrophy and treat the disease before it causes a bunch of other potentially fatal medical complications.
"Lipodystrophy became one of the major limitations to long-term ART, which is associated with the development of insulin resistance, hyperlipidemia, and endothelial dysfunction, which can cause cardiovascular disease (Jones et al., 2005; Joshi et al., 2011; Ghosn et al., 2018; Yang et al., 2022). Following the expanded access to anti-retroviral therapy, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have emerged as the leading cause of death in people living with HIV (PLWH) (Croxford et al., 2017). Dyslipidemia is the most prevalent CVD risk factor in PLWH and is responsible for approximately 50% of the overall CVD risk. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to estimate the risk of anti-retroviral drugs causing the development of lipodystrophy."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166354224000275?via%3Dihub