[Nutrition problems experienced by adults infected with the human immunodeficiency virus in Abidjan (Ivory Coast)]

Denutrition is frequent among HIV-infected (HIV+) adults in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the risk factors for denutrition is a reduction in dietary intake. Eating disorders may be partly responsible for such decreases in food intake. We prospectively analyzed the frequency, associated factors and progression of anorexia, dysphagia and food aversion in a cohort of 330 HIV-infected adults included in a trial of early chemoprophylaxis with cotrimoxazole in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Patients were followed-up by means of scheduled monthly visits. Eating disorders were assessed using a standardized questionnaire after 6, 12 and 18 months of follow-up. After six months of follow-up, 28% of the patients reported anorexia, 9% dysphagia and 28% food aversion. Multivariate analysis showed that anorexia was significantly more frequent in women than in men (odds ratio (OR) = 2.0 [95% confidence interval: 1.2-3.5]) and in patients with a CD4+ lymphocyte count < 200/mm3 (OR = 1.8 [1.0-3.5]). The risk of dysphagia was also higher for women than for men (OR = 1.8 [1.0-3.5]). The risk of dysphagia was also higher for women than for men (OR = 3.3 [1.3-8.4]). Patients with < 200 CD4+ lymphocytes/mm3 were more likely than those with CD4+ lymphocyte counts of over 200 to suffer food aversion (OR = 1.8 [1.1-3.0]). We analyzed the progression of dietary problems during follow-up and found that anorexia and dysphygia tended to disappear from one evaluation to the next whereas the number of patients reporting food aversion tended to increase. For patients reporting anorexia at the 6-month evaluation, significantly more women than men reported the persistence of anorexia at the 12-month evaluation (16% versus 5%; p = 0.03). Among patients with dysphagia at six months, those with a CD4+ lymphocyte count below 200/mm3 were much more likely than those with a CD4+ count above 200 to report persistent dysphagia at the 12-month evaluation (7% versus 0%; p = 0. 02, Fischer's exact test). For patients with no dietary problems after six months, those taking cotrimoxazole were significantly more likely than those of the placebo group to report food aversion at the 12-month evaluation (21% versus 8%; p = 0.01). We found that dietary problems were associated more with the stage of immunodeficiency that with socioeconomic factors, with the exception of sex, which was associated with several outcomes. These data stress the importance of detecting these frequent dietary problems as part of the overall clinical management of HIV+ adults in Africa, and of providing affected individuals with early nutritional counseling.