Antiretroviral Therapy Plus High-Calorie Diets Harms Rodent Hearts

Patients with HIV/AIDS often require combined antiretroviral therapy (cART), which has significantly improved life expectancy but is associated with various side effects, including metabolic disturbances and cardiovascular issues. Dietary interventions, such as high-calorie diets, are sometimes used to combat HIV-associated wasting, but their interaction with cART on cardiac health is not well understood. This study specifically addresses how different protein-calorie diets, when combined with cART, affect the electrical activity of the heart.

The study revealed significant adverse cardiac effects in rodents receiving cART combined with high-calorie diets. Specifically, animals on the cART plus low-protein, high-calorie diet group showed a 25% increase in QT interval duration compared to healthy controls (p<0.01), indicating delayed ventricular repolarization. The cART plus normal-protein, high-calorie diet group also exhibited a 15% prolongation of the QT interval (p<0.05) and a 10% increase in QRS duration compared to the cART-only group, suggesting impaired ventricular depolarization. The most striking finding was the 3-fold higher incidence of ventricular arrhythmias (e.g., premature ventricular contractions) in both high-calorie diet groups combined with cART compared to control animals (p<0.001), suggesting a heightened risk of serious cardiac events. These ECG changes were significantly more pronounced than in animals receiving cART alone or dietary interventions alone, with some parameters showing a 40% greater deviation from baseline in the combined treatment groups.