Normal ageing takes a toll on the gastrointestinal tract. Ageing muscles, including the digestive muscles, contract more slowly, take plenty of time relaxing, and move
their contents along at a more leisurely pace; therefore constipation can become a concern as you get older.

In the very earliest phases of HIV infection, HIV attacks the immune defenses of the gut and damages a large proportion of the body’s CD4 T-cell reserves.

Diarrhoea is common in people with HIV, either due to infection, as a result of side effects to some drugs used to treat HIV, or from an inappropriate diet.