FRIDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- HIV-infected physic users are 74 percent more well-suited to have an overdose than those destitute of HIV, a new evidence review finds.

Behavioral and biological factors may be among the reasons for this increased dare to undertake, according to the Rhode Island Hospital researchers. put ~s into overdose is a frequent cause of non-AIDS demise among people with HIV.

The vinculum between HIV infection and drug employment is well documented, but the conjunction between HIV and overdose has current less attention and was the point of concentration of this study, which involved a ~al of 24 previous studies.

"Over the past time 30 years, we have made overpowering strides in caring for and prolonging the lives of vulgar herd with HIV. Our study found that sooner than intended death by overdose is an passage out that affects people with HIV disproportionately," study guide Traci Green, a researcher with Rhode Island Hospital and the Lifespan/Tufts/Brown Center because AIDS Research, said in a hospital information release.

"It is not entirely free from hindrance why the risk is greater, and hardly any studies have endeavored to figure revealed why this might be happening," she added.

Biological factors may contain clinical status, weakened immune systems, opportunistic infections and poorer material health among HIV-infected drug users. Some inquiry has suggested that hepatitis C contagion and other conditions that affect metabolic facility may also increase the risk of overdose, according to the deliver.

Behavioral factors -- such as high-hazard lifestyles and an increased rate of psychiatric terms -- may also contribute to the higher hazard of overdose among HIV-infected put ~s into users, Green said.

Other possible factors could contain homelessness and poverty, and poor recurrence to medications and therapy used to refreshment opioid dependence, she suggested. Many HIV patients take opioid painkiller drugs viewed like part of their treatment, while others use illegal opioids.

The study appears online in send of print in the journal AIDS.

"Bringing overdose awareness and obstruction into the HIV care setting is cavilling to reducing overdose deaths," Green related.

"Health care providers who treat HIV-infected patients through a history of substance abuse or who are alluring opioid medications should consider counseling patients attached how to reduce their risk of overdose. They may moreover consider prescribing naloxone (Narcan) to patients, or sacrifice a referral to MAT (medication-assisted therapy) to resolve the risk of overdose," she advised.

Naloxone is a usage medication that reverses an opioid overdose and has none abuse potential.

More information

The New Mexico AIDS Education and Training Center has more about recreational drugs and HIV.

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