Prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension and Lipodystrophy in HAART Receiving HIV Patients in Southern Ethiopia

Aims: In Ethiopia, AIDS has become the leading cause of mortality in the 15-49 years age group, accounting for an estimated 43% of all young adult deaths. Though the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), improved survival and quality of life, early data from those treated, raised concerns about a possible increase in both peripheral and coronary arterial disease through lipodystrophy, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia. Hence an attempt was made in this study to understand risk factors of HIV positive subjects and prevalence of lipodystrophy, type II diabetes mellitus and hypertension in subjects receiving HAART.

Study Design: Institution based cross sectional and retrospective study was conducted.

Place and Duration of Study and Sample: Study participants were men and women who were HIV/AIDS patients receiving HAART from Sodo government hospital, Southern Ethiopia from December 1st, 2009 - January 30th, 2010.

Methodology: By using the subjects’ electronic database as sampling frame, a total of 176 subjects were recruited for the study using simple random sampling method. Data was collected on socio demographic characteristics, HAART use, CD4 count, subjects’ status at the start of treatment, measure of body fat distribution, physical activity, blood pressure and blood glucose.

Results: Prevalence of Diabetes mellitus was seen in 8% of the subjects. Hypertension was seen in 15.9% of the subjects. In multivariate analysis adjusted for age and duration of HAART both lipoatrophy and lipohypertrophy were significantly associated with diabetes mellitus while only lipohypertrophy (adjusted for age) remained to be significantly associated with hypertension.

Conclusion: Since lipoatrophy (adjusted for age and duration of HAART) was significantly associated with diabetes mellitus and lipohypertrophy (adjusted for age and duration of HAART) was associated with diabetes mellitus and (adjusted for age) was associated with hypertension, there is a need to investigate types of HAART regimens which do not lead to lipodystrophy and associated diabetes mellitus or hypertension in AIDS/HIV subjects.