HIV / AIDS and Nutrition:

HIV / AIDS and Nutrition:

According to statistics, there are over 40 million people living with HIV / AIDS and their number is increasing rapidly. In several environments, the pandemic is aggravated by a combination of various factors including increased malnutrition and food and nutrition insecurity. These factors combine to not only intensify but also accelerate the negative effects associated with HIV / AIDS pandemic. HIV / AIDS not only affects human development but it has a considerable interrelationship with nutrition. Consequently, nutrition acts as an opportune entry point for helping the affected communities to handle the pandemic. Nutrition is specifically used as an integrated approach to the care, health, and food security of the affected households. Therefore, there is a strong link between HIV / AIDS and nutrition, especially because of medications that contribute to various problems such as diarrhea and wasting or obesity.

Nutrition Medications and HIV / AIDS:

Nutrition management has emerged as an important aspect of dealing with the symptoms and impacts of HIV and AIDS. This approach is used in dealing with the disease because it involves to nutritional care and support and the fact that healthy nutrition is significant in the management of HIV / AIDS. Some of the major ways with which nutrition management is used as a means for dealing with the illness include the fact that certain antiretroviral medications require attention to dietary intake (Ada, Hendricks, Dong & Gerrior, 2009, p. 20). The use of nutrition management is also fueled by the effect of some nutrients like minerals and vitamins on how drugs are absorbed or metabolized. The interactions between the drugs and food can have considerable effects on the effectiveness of the drug or may result in extra or worsening adverse effects on the individual.

The significance of the relationship between HIV / AIDS and nutrition is evident on the basis that nutrition has usually acted as the most vital aspect of HIV care. During the initial years of the disease, clinical nutrition was not only necessary but it was an experimental and required to huge and normally fatal wasting or weight loss associated with the progession of the disease. While the need for improved knowledge and skills to manage the disease has continued to grow, the treatment of the disease includes best possible nutrition and healthy lifestyle interventions to assist the victims to live healthy and long lives (Pribram, 2010, p. 18). Nutritional approach is regarded as a significant aspect of managing HIV / AIDS because patients have experienced conditions like morbid obesity, wasting, metabolic disorders, cancers, renal failure, and other systemic problems.

A HIV patient's demand for food is enhanced by further infection or fever since the disease make the individual's defense system to work harder to fight the infection, which in turn increases his/her nutrient and energy requirements. The patient needs to eat more to meet the extra needs for food, extra energy and nutrients. Notably, the demand for food, nutritional requirements, and extra energy increases as the HIV / AIDS symptoms progress. Nonetheless, HIV / AIDS lessens food intake making people with the disease not to eat enough to meet these requirements. The major reasons for decreased food intake include various factors such as medications and associated symptoms. Additionally, less food intake by HIV / AIDS patients is largely attributed to medications that lessen the appetite for food, changes the taste of food, and contribute to absorption or metabolic difficulties.

Consequently, how the medications work is largely influenced by the food eaten by HIV / AIDS patients and the body will utilize the food and nutrients. In cases where there is poor nutrition, the individual's body cannot manage or deal with the medications effectively. HIV patients need to consult their physicians regarding the medicines they are taking to find out whether there are any foods they cannot eat with them. According to Lisam & Lisam (2009), the need for doctor's advice is also fueled by the constant emergence and experiment of new and different medicines for HIV and AIDS (p. 269).

Problems Associated with Diarrhea Caused by HIV Medications:

For people living with HIV / AIDS, the negative impacts of drugs and food intake and the impact of drugs on metabolism, excretion, and absorption of nutrients may have considerable negative effects on their nutritional status. Most of the existing antiretroviral medications can contribute to fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, gastroesophageal reflux, vomiting, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia. Generally, the disease causes the deterioration of the lining of the gut which in turn affects the ability of the gut to digest and absorb food. This contributes to the inability of the gut to absorb or take up nutrients from the eaten foods i.e. mal-absorption that causes diarrhea through which nutrients and water are lost from the body.

The resultant diarrhea contributes to various problems on the HIV patient such as negative impacts on the normal functioning of the stomach and bowels. In most cases, diarrhea makes the stomach and bowels to have difficulties in digesting food and absorbing nutrients effectively. The other problems of diarrhea associated with HIV / AIDS medication include excessive weight loss, malnutrition, loss of appetite for food, and even death. Problems associated with diarrhea from HIV medications are associated with the fact that it leads to dehydration, water loss from the body, and loss of electrolytes minerals like potassium and sodium. As a result, diarrhea has developed to become one of the most common problems for people with HIV / AIDS disease to an extent that it accounts for approximately 80% of this population and causes many illnesses and deaths among the HIV patients.

Wasting or Obesity Associated with HIV Medications:

Drug therapies or medications for HIV patients contribute to problems on the individual's body weight due to the food absorption and metabolic disorders. In the early years of the use of clinical nutrition therapy HIV infected people were mainly worried about weight loss and wasting away as a result. However, recent statistics and trends have revealed that overweight and obesity have become more common than wasting among HIV-infected population. This is primarily because these patients experience considerable changes on body tissue, loss of body mass, and increase in fat.