Treatments for Wasting in Patients with the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

Abstract

Wasting was an early identifying characteristic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, originally termed “slim disease” in Africa.¹ As defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), wasting in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is the involuntary loss of more than 10 percent of base-line body weight in combination with diarrhea, weakness, or fever.² Wasting is considered an AIDS-defining condition. However, there is considerable controversy about the appropriate definition of AIDS wasting (whether it should be defined as the loss of 5 or 10 percent of usual weight) and whether changes in body composition, rather than . . .