Heart Attacks More Common With HIV

Not exactly breaking news, but here's the NYT's report:

People with H.I.V. have more than four times the risk of sudden heart attack as their uninfected peers, Dr. Hsue and her colleagues reported last month in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The most likely explanation is that both the virus and the drugs that fight it cause chronic inflammation, said Dr. Paul M. Ridker, a Harvard Medical School professor who led pioneering studies that established the connection between inflammation and heart disease. (He was not involved in the study published last month.) Also, he said, the drugs cause the liver to make more cholesterol, another heart attack risk factor. While the link between H.I.V. and heart disease is not generally known in the medical profession, some doctors who specialize in the treatment of AIDS patients have long suspected such a connection.

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