Diet Consumption in HIV/AIDS Patients Stabilized on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) at Art Centre of a Tertiary Care Hospital

Objective: HIV/AIDS patients stabilized on antiretroviral therapy have a greater loss of body weight, and therefore need adequate nutrition.The objective of this study was to correlate nutritional status, body weight of patients and CD4 cell count in HIV/AIDS patients stabilized on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART).

Methodology: An observational study was conducted on people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA), who were registered at ART centre of P.B.M.&associated group of hospitals in Bikaner, Rajasthan (India). The patients under study (n=28) were already stabilized on HAART based on NACO- India. These PLHA were consuming different types of food/diet, the effect of which was under study on ART-induced changes in CD4 cell count and body weight of patients. A food/nutrition assessment form including body weight of patients and scoring system of Healthy Eating Index (HEI) were used to assess the nutritional status of PLHA.

Findings: The study showed insignicant increase (p>0.05) in both CD4 cell count and body weight. The mean HEI score indicates inadequate diet consumption and poor nutritional status in PLHA.

Conclusion: The balanced and healthy diet has positive impact on immune status and body weight of HIV/AIDS patients stabilized on HAART. Our observations underlie the fact that as because the subjects understudy were mostly from low socioeconomic group and the low Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score, therefore, further rise of HAART induced CD4 cell count was not found to be signicant.