SUNDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) — An older class of antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV can cause premature aging, a new study suggests.
Researchers examined muscle cells from HIV patients and found that zidovudine (AZT) and other antiviral drugs known as nucleoside analogue reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) damage DNA in mitochondria, the energy factories in cells.
The study is published June 26 in the journal Nature Genetics.
The finding may help explain why some HIV patients treated with antiviral drugs show advanced signs of frailty and age-related diseases such as dementia and cardiovascular disease at an early age. Read More »