Investigations of lifestyle factors

We have used the baseline data from PLWH within POPPY only.  Using this information, we identified four key risk behaviours: current smoking, alcohol consumption >21 units per week, recreational drug use in the past 6 months and the incidence of sexually transmitted disease in the past 12 months.  WE found that over a quarter of participants were current smokers, 17% drank >21 units of alcohol per week, around a third had used recreational drugs in the past 6 months, and three-quarters reported a sexually transmitted infection in the past year.  Only 12.6% of participants reported none of these behaviours, with 17.6% reporting three or four of the risk behaviours.   Although there was a decline in the prevalence of this ‘high-risk’ phenotype as people aged, it was seen in all age groups.  There was some suggestions of an association between the high-risk phenotype and a history of mental health conditions, although this was not statistically significant.  However, there was strong evidence of an association with symptoms of depression as assessed by the PHQ-9 and CES-D equations (equations that have been validated to give a reliable indication of people with signs of depression).  People who exhibited this high risk phenotype were also more likely to reported <90% adherence to their ART, although this did not translate into an association with either the current viral load or the person’s CD4 count.