African Americans living with HIV who don’t receive antiretroviral therapy and have inherited an altered form of a gene, called APOL1, from both parents have about a 50 percent lifetime risk of developing kidney disease, according to a new paper published by National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. The finding brings scientists closer to understanding why African Americans, regardless of whether or not they’re living with HIV, are significantly more likely to develop kidney failure than whites.
↧