Gait speed and biological aging in older people with HIV

The walking speed it’s a key indicator of biological aging and the vulnerability of older people with HIVas revealed by the Spanish multicenter study ‘FUNCFRAIL’led by experts from AIDS Study Group (GeSIDA) of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC).

This work, according to Europa Press, which has been presented in the American city of Denver on the occasion of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2026 (CROI)has analyzed the relationship between inflammatory and epigenetic biomarkers in blood and different clinical indicators of aging in 304 people with HIV of 50 years or more and a long evolution of the infection. Almost half had three or more comorbiditiesa 8 percent met criteria of fragility and a 17 percent had depression.

The biological processes of aging in this population are reflected especially clearly in the physical function and, in particular, in the walking speedwhich opens the door to simple assessment tools and applicable in routine clinical practice. This is because, thanks to the current antiretroviral treatmentspatients reach increasingly advanced ages.

However, since GeAIDS have remembered that, even with virological suppression (undetectable viral load in the blood)these people frequently present fragility, functional impairment and multiple chronic diseases. In this regard, he referred to this study, which shows that the different inflammatory markers are not uniformly associated with clinical status, but rather reflect specific aspects of aging.

Bookmarks

He sCD14 marker was identified as the inflammatory signal most closely linked to frailty and with a greater probability of risk of malnutritionwhile the ultrasensitive C-reactive protein (hsCRP) showed association only with the first. Furthermore, several biomarkers —among them, IL-6, VCAM-1, sCD163 and I-FABP— were correlated with the VACS indexused to estimate risk of mortality and clinical events in people with HIV.

Going deeper, this research has shown that people who they walked faster they presented significantly lower levels of IL-6a key marker of systemic inflammation. On the contrary, a slower walking speed was associated with increased global DNA methylation (CpG)a indicator of biological aging estimated at the epigenetic level.

Therefore, the mobility can directly reflect the inflammatory load and the global biological state of the organismwhile the global methylation was related to the serum albumin levelswhich points to a possible connection between biological age, nutritional status and functional capacity.

In light of all this, GeAIDS considers that the combination of blood biomarkers with objective measures of physical function could improve the identification of patients at risk and guide preventive interventions directed to preserve autonomy and quality of life. Possible strategies include physical exercise programs, nutritional support and specific geriatric follow-up.