Aging-related co-morbidities are more common in people with HIV compared to people without HIV. And the gut microbiome may play a role in healthy aging; however, this relationship remains unexplored in the context of HIV. Michelle Floris-Moore, MD, MS, co-authored a study led by Brandilyn Peters, PhD, Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, that differentiated aging in people with and without HIV, to examine the role the microbiome plays in this process. The Institute’s Chapel Hill Clinical Research Site also participated as part of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) / Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) Combined Cohort Study (MACS/WIHS-CSS), now known as the MWCCS.
The study showed that older age was associated with greater microbiome diversity and uniqueness, greater abundance of Akkermansia and Streptococcus, and lower abundance of Prevotella and Faecalibacterium, among others; findings were generally consistent by sex and HIV status. Age is associated with consistent changes in the gut microbiome in both women and men with or without HIV. Some aging-related microbiota are associated with aging-related declines in health.