Rethinking aging biomarkers in HIV: from measures to meaning

People with HIV (PWH) on effective antiretroviral therapy continue to experience a disproportionate burden of age-related comorbidities and multimorbidity. This review explores HIV-associated aging as a systems-level dysregulation and loss of resilience and evaluates emerging biomarker strategies for capturing its biological and clinical heterogeneity.

Recent evidence indicates that aging in HIV is driven by interacting immune, metabolic, regenerative, structural, and inter-organ pathways that generate measurable signatures across biological scales. Composite biomarker approaches integrating molecular, physiological, and functional measures are increasingly being applied to cardiovascular, neurocognitive, physical, and co-infection-related outcomes. Large cohort studies, risk prediction models, and intervention trials support their clinical relevance, while emerging gerotherapeutic studies suggest that biologic aging markers may serve as responsive treatment endpoints.

No single biomarker adequately captures HIV-associated aging. Future progress will depend on multimodal, outcome-anchored composites that integrate biological and functional domains and are coupled with artificial intelligence- and machine learning-based approaches to improve risk stratification, therapeutic monitoring, and evaluation of geroscience-informed interventions in PWH.