Women's Diabetes Risk

WOMEN'S DIABETES RISK All HIV-positive women with traditional diabetes risk factors'and not just those on antiretroviral regimens containing a protease inhibitor'should be regularly All HIV-positive women with traditional diabetes risk factors'and not just those on antiretroviral regimens containing a protease inhibitor'should be regularly screened for prediabetes and diabetes, urge researchers from New York's Montefiore Medical Center.Previous studies have suggested a link between protease inhibitor use and problems with blood-sugar control, but those studies focused almost exclusively on men or lacked adequate control groups to be applicable to HIV-positive women, the researchers say. Their study, published in the May 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, focused exclusively on female HIVers and showed that such traditional diabetes risk factors as elevated body mass index, lack of regular exercise, older age, a family history of the disease, and smoking emerged as the most significant predictors of prediabetic conditions and diabetes. Antiretroviral regimens that did not contain a protease inhibitor were linked with a higher risk of insulin a resistance, a potential diabetes precursor, but protease drugs were not seen as an independent risk factor for either prediabetes or diabetes.