Metabolic Syndrome in HIV-patients in Antiretroviral Therapy.

Introduction: The global prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MS) among people living with HIV/AIDS varies from 20% to 33%. Objective: to estimate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and associated factors in a group of HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with HIV-infected patients from a reference center in Bahia, Brazil. We evaluated clinical, socio-demographic and anthropometric data. MS was defined according to the guidelines of International Diabetes Federation. Results: We evaluated 152 patients with mean age of 47.3±11.6 years, 59.2% male. The main comorbidities detected were diabetes (3.3%) hypertriglyceridemia (9.3%) and metabolic syndrome (MS,38.2%). Patients with MS were predominantly women (55.2% vs 31.9%; p=0.005), older [52.1 (10.4) vs 44.3 (11.3); p<0.001], and had overweight (74.1% vs 23.4%; p<0.001). After multivariate analysis MS remained associated with age (OR = 1.076; 95% CI: 1.030 – 1.125), female sex (OR = 2.452; 95% CI: 1.114 – 5.374) and family history of hypertension (OR = 3.678; 95% CI: 1.431 – 9.395). Conclusion: Almost half of the HIV-infected patients in Bahia presents with MS which seems to be driven by classical risk factors.