**Author details**

*Nutrition and HIV/AIDS - Implication for Treatment, Prevention and Cure*

the British HIV association concurs [1, 18].

and undernutrition [18].

**8. Conclusion**

HIV/AIDS.

the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that HIV-infected mothers not to breastfeed their infants, regardless of maternal disease status, viral load, or ART and

The important issue is to meet all nutrient needs and provide the required energy requirements. However, according to the WHO, some considerations are needed for safely replacing food. Such considerations are based on the fact that untreated HIV-infected patients have an increased resting energy expenditure, decreased appetite, digestion of food, and absorption of nutrients. In brief, such patients often have a range of micronutrient deficiencies. However, there are no evidence-based guidelines on the appropriate types and amounts of micronutrient supplements for HIV-infected children. The WHO has previously endorsed the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods to reduce mortality

In the area of nutrition and HIV, children deserve special attention because of their additional needs to ensure growth and development and their dependency on adults for adequate care. Nutritional advice and support should be a priority component of the continuum of care for HIV-infected women and children. Furthermore, case by case, the special nutritional needs of children should be determined in light of the guidelines and recommendations adopted by various professional health and medical associations. Wasting and undernutrition in HIV-infected children reflect a series of failures within the health system, the home, and the community and not just a biological process related to virus and host interactions. In brief, despite the great impact of recent pharmacologic interventions, optimal nutrition continues to be essential therapy for HIV-infected children, and it has the potential to provide adjunct immunemodulatory therapy, thus improving care and outcomes of children with

**24**

Inaya Hajj Hussein1 \*, Lara Youssef<sup>2</sup> , Andrea Mladenovic3 , Angelo Leone4 , Abdo Jurjus<sup>5</sup> and Virginia Uhley1

1 Department of Foundational Medical Studies, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, Rochester, MI, USA

2 Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, Notre Dame University, Lebanon

3 School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

4 Department of Experimental and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

5 Department of Anatomy, Cell Biology and Physiological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

\*Address all correspondence to: hajjhuss@oakland.edu

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
