**5. Conclusion**

The innovations in the medical science and development of new biotechnology medicines changed the course of the human immune-deficiency virus (HIV) infection towards a chronic condition and increased significantly the life expectance.

People living with HIV are more likely to follow healthy lifestyle and build proper nutrition habits but are also willing to use food supplements and micronutrients as a part of their care plan. They acknowledge that nutrition habits place an important role in the improvement of the health status, enhance the adherence and concordance to prescribed therapy and its effectiveness, reduction in the risk of adverse drug events and to boost the immune function. However, there is a risk of possible interactions with the antiretroviral medicines which may result in decrease of the drug concentrations in the blood plasma and subsequent decreased therapeutic effect and increased risk of viral resistance.

International guidelines are issued periodically to help competent health authorities and healthcare professions in the process of care of people living with HIV. The guidelines for treatment and monitoring of HIV in adults and those for nutrition and HIV already present information about potent interactions between selected micronutrients and antiretrovirals, but still there are gaps of information concerning possible interactions between drugs and food supplements from herbal origin.

People living with HIV are also more likely to use internet for nutrition and health-related sources of information. In this light competent authorities, healthcare professionals and patients' organizations should place info-vigilance strategies to monitor the reliability of health-related information in order to protect consumers from misinformation. People should be advised to use only trusted medical websites and have closer communication with their healthcare professionals. They should be also educated how to monitor their health status and what possible outcomes to expect when using food supplements and micronutrients (desirable or negative) alongside the prescribed antiretroviral therapy and should always communicate with their healthcare professionals (physicians and pharmacists) any changes in their nutrition habits. Healthcare professionals should follow the most up-to-date recommendations in order to individualize and assure proper nutrition habits as a part of the total treatment plan of people living with HIV.

More studies are needed to fully evaluate the possible interactions between the different medicines and available food supplements and micronutrients and propose mechanism of action in order not to optimize and not to compromise the desired therapeutic outcomes.

### **Acknowledgements**

I would like to thank professor Guenka Petrova for her help, empathy and guidance in my every-day academic and scientific work, to professor Radka Argirova and professor George Momekov for their highly appreciated expertise, and to all healthcare professionals and people living with HIV who showed willingness to participate in the inquiry.

**61**

**Author details**

Maria Jordanova Dimitrova

provided the original work is properly cited.

Medical University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria

\*Address all correspondence to: mia\_dimitrova@yahoo.com

© 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,

Department of Organization and Economy of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy,

*Nutrition Habits in People Living with HIV/AIDS in Bulgaria: Review of Current Practice…*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84326*

### **Conflict of interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

*Nutrition Habits in People Living with HIV/AIDS in Bulgaria: Review of Current Practice… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84326*
