Sex and dating with herpes in London: News - afraid of herpes, herpes treatment, HIV transmission

Sex and dating with herpes in London: News - afraid of herpes, herpes treatment, HIV transmission

Herpes Diet

The role of the diet in herpes simply cannot be over emphasized!

For diet- avoid caffeine in all forms including chocolate, coffee, green tea, black tea. Avoid nicotine and excessive alcohol consumption. Avoids all nuts and seeds except for hemp seeds and flax seeds. Avoids raisins, carob, and gelatin and cereal grains. Eat a low-sugar diet with only moderate amounts of whole grain bread and whole grain pasta. * Reach for the foods rich in omega fatty acids such as hemp and flax seeds. Salmon, tuna, sardines and mackerel. Avocadoes and olives. Eat organic yoghurt daily with at least 2.5% milk fat. Eat lots of garlic or take a garlic supplement. Eat brewers yeast or take a selenium supplement. * Take up yoga or tai-chi or qi-gong. Punch a punching bag or play some tennis, racquetball or squash. • Avoid L-lysine. Long-term use of L-lysine can actually impair your immune system. Get your lysine from your diet rather than a pill. • Avoid magical quick-fixes for herpes such as dmso and hydrogen peroxide, nonoxydol-9, etc. There are no quick-fixes for herpes.

Herpes Treatment

"Kill The Herpes Simplex Virus On Contact..."

Thousands of herpes sufferers wordwide have used choraphor and seen great results. Their outbreaks lessened in severityoutbreaks lessened in severity, breakouts clear up quickly and most report no further breakouts at all.

New way to stop spread of STD's?

A new way of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases is supported by research published in Nature today (5 January).

It involves microbicides, which are gels and creams that a woman applies to her vagina before sex. They kill bacteria and viruses and stop them being transmitted between partners.

(Fig: Herpes simplex (red) is a sexually transmitted virus)

Over 60 microbicides are being tested, but none has yet made it to the market. They act in different ways, for example by forming a gelatinous physical barrier, like a condom, or by changing the vagina's acidity.

Now, for the first time, researchers at Harvard Medical School, United States, propose using small pieces of genetic material, known as RNA, to kill viruses by stopping their genes from functioning.

Deborah Palliser and colleagues tested the concept on female mice, which they later infected with a type of herpes virus.

They applied a fatty substance containing a type of RNA called 'small interfering RNA' (siRNA) that can be manipulated to disrupt specific genes — in this case herpes genes.

The substance protected the mice from disease for the remaining nine days of the experiment without causing inflammation. It even protected mice when applied after they were infected.

The researchers say that, while more studies are needed to show, among other things, how long protection lasts and whether menstruation affects protection, the findings suggest that a human microbicide using siRNA might not need to be applied just before sex, as now thought.

This, they add, could solve one of the main problems of microbicides: making sure women use them consistently.

The results could have implications for efforts to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS if an effective siRNA microbicide can be developed against HIV rather than herpes.

In addition, the ulcers herpes causes greatly increase people's vulnerability to infection with HIV. Preventing herpes, might therefore help reduce HIV transmission.

HERPES TREATMENT

FDA proposes easing rules on making, administering herpes tests

The FDA has proposed making it easier to make, market and administer tests for the herpes virus. In a proposed rule dated Dec. 21, the Food and Drug Administration said it may change how it classifies tests for herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2. The move to class II from class III would reduce the regulatory burdens associated with herpes tests. That would both lower the barrier to entry for companies seeking to develop and market herpes tests and relax the training requirements for laboratories and medical offices that offer the tests, FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza said. That could make the tests both cheaper and more widely available. HERPES

Babies get herpes from mohels

City's right on rite

The city's attempts to call attention to a potentially lethal circumcision rite is being couched by some ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders as an infringement on their religious freedom. It is not. Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden is merely fulfilling his obligation to the people of the city by educating new parents about an extremely rare but possibly deadly complication from the ritual.

The procedure, called metzitzah b'peh, involves using the mouth to suck blood from the open wound after a boy is circumcised on the eighth day of life. Most mohels - those who perform circumcisions - use gauze or other means of cleaning the cut. But some Hasidim consider metzitzah b'peh essential. The number of those circumcisions is small - 2,000 to 4,000 a year. The risk is even smaller, but in rare cases, the procedure transmits disease. And it can be fatal.

In 2004, three babies in the city were found to be infected with herpes after undergoing the ritual. All became very sick, and one died. That mohel agreed to stop doing metzitzah b'peh. But after two more cases were reported last year, including one in which the baby suffered brain damage, the Health Department rightly stepped in.

Many parents don't know of the risk; many mohels don't know it themselves. So Frieden began an education campaign through the Jewish media and hospitals, advising parents to find out if a mohel intends to perform metzitzah b'peh and to decide for themselves if they prefer to find another.

Some Hasidic leaders are furious at what they see as government interference in a religious ritual. They want Frieden to mind his own business. Well, this is his business. He is not trying to ban the procedure; he wants to make sure parents are aware of the problem. And he is within his rights to act if mohels who know they are infected continue to spread disease.

No one wants to hurt babies. Not the parents, not Frieden and certainly not the mohels. All must work together to keep infants safe.

HERPES PICTURES

Herpes Sufferers 5 Times More Likely To Contact HIV

Anti-AIDS gel January 10, 2006 SHARES in pharmaceutical company Starpharma soared 8percent yesterday when the US Food and Drug Administration fast-tracked approval of Vivagel, a new drug the company is developing for prevention of HIV. Starpharma share price surged 4c to close at 50.5c yesterday.

Chief executive John Raff said: "There are currently no approved products for the prevention of HIV infection. The FDA recognises the potential of Vivagel to address this unmet medical need. Vivagel's new drug application will now receive priority review, which has a shorter assessment time.

"The early review is expected to shorten FDA's approval time significantly."

Starpharma chief operating officer Jackie Fairley said the FDA's move to expedite the approval process is a significant development for the company.

"The review for the approval of Vivagel could take half the time.

"It would now take about six months instead of 13 for the new drug application to be approved and sold in the market. This means that the drug could get to the market far more quickly."

Vivagel is a preventive agent to women to prevent becoming infected with sexually transmitted diseases.

It is a vaginal gel which works as a chemical barrier to protect women from contracting HIV and genital herpes during sexual intercourse.

"Vivagel is not a treatment for HIV.

"The gel is used topically prior to sexual intercourse to prevent the women from becoming infected with HIV, genital herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases," Dr Fairley said.

HIV, which leads to AIDS, is a major health burden. Forty million people worldwide are infected with the virus.

In Australia about 15,000 have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.

About 50 million people in the US are infected with genital herpes. In Australia there are about 3.4 million people with genital herpes. About 16 per cent of sexually active women and 8per cent of men are infected with the disease. Dr Fairley said people with genital herpes were five to seven times more likely to contract HIV.

She said a Phase One safety study of Vivagel was completed recently. The drug is expected to be approved for sale in the US, Europe and Australia by late 2008.

Starpharma, listed on the stock exchange in 2000, has a market capitalisation of $70 million.

Its chairman is Peter Bartels, former chief executive of Coles Myer. Recently the company signed a $US20 million ($26 million) contract with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institute of Health.

HERPES

Teenage Girls Don't Know About STD's!

Teen Girls Lack Basic Facts About Most STDs Most sexually active teenage girls know relatively little about sexually transmitted diseases until it is too late, according to new research. In a survey of 300 adolescent girls in the Pittsburgh area, Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that girls who reported having been diagnosed with an STD knew more about that particular disease than other girls, but did not know more about the other diseases. The findings are published in the January edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health. On average, with the exception of HIV/AIDS, the teens did not know many basic facts about STDs, said Julie Downs, lead author of the study. "Our schools have decided to focus on AIDS, and that has come at a cost," she said. "Teens just aren't being taught about these other diseases, and so they may come away with a false sense of confidence." The study's findings are troubling because teenagers who know little about STDs are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior and to delay the treatment of STDs, the researchers said. And the consequences can be severe. Genital herpes, for example, cannot be cured. Genital warts can render a woman more susceptible to cervical cancer, and chlamydia can lead to infertility. GENITAL HERPES

Causes Of Common STD's

Oral sex may be a risk factor for nongonococcal urethritis (NGU), one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases affecting both men and women, according to a new study in the Culturally Relevant Behavioral Intervention Dramatically Reduces STDs (January 14, 1999) -- NIAID-supported researchers have developed a behavioral intervention that significantly reduced new cases of chlamydial infection and gonorrhea during a 12-month period among a group of ... > full story Very High Prevalence Of Virus Linked To Cervical Cancer Found In Adolescent Women (December 29, 2004) -- Exceeding rates observed in previous research, a new study found four out of five sexually active adolescent women infected with human papillomavirus, a virus linked to cervical cancer and genital ... > full story Female Sex Hormones Play A Vital Role In Defense Against Sexually Transmitted Diseases, McMaster University Researchers Find (February 26, 2005) -- Two McMaster University studies, to be published in the Journal of Virology, show that sex hormones have a profound effect on susceptibility of female mice to the herpes simplex virus, type 2 (HSV-2 ... > full story Risk Of Herpes Infection Rises With Oral Sex (March 12, 2005) -- The first clinical study to document risk of acquiring herpes simplex virus type 1 infection based on sexual activity has linked oral sex and vaginal intercourse with a demonstrably higher rate of ... > full story Health & Medicine The study, by Australian researchers Catriona Bradshaw, MD, and colleagues at the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, is the first major case-control study to simultaneously address all currently hypothesized causes of NGU. The findings help to identify areas for future research on the causes of NGU, and suggest that treatment decisions should be based on clinical features of the disease—not just microscopic assessment. The study also is the first to demonstrate that the causes of NGU in men who have sex with other men are similar to those found in heterosexual men. NGU is caused by a number of different organisms (most notably, Chlamydia trachomatis) and may lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, and chronic pelvic pain. Though the cause of NGU is sometimes known, and antibiotics (azithromycin or tetracycline) are generally effective, about half of all cases have no identifiable cause – a fact that makes treatment frustrating and uncertain for physicians and patients. Results of previous studies show that Chlamydia trachomatis causes between 30 percent to 50 percent of cases of NGU and Mycoplasma genitalium, 10 percent to 30 percent. From March 2004 to March 2005, the Melbourne team studied 329 men with NGU and 307 men without symptoms of urethritis. All subjects were given a sexual practice questionnaire. The men in the study underwent a urethral smear, and provided a first-stream urine specimen, which was tested for pathogens that may have caused NGU. Chlamydial infection was common in both heterosexual and homosexual men with NGU (22 percent and 15 percent, respectively) and was far more common than in control groups. C. trachomatis and M. genitalium were associated with unprotected vaginal sex. M. genitalium (9 percent), adenoviruses (4 percent), and herpes simplex type 1 (2 percent) were more common in NGU patients than in controls, after adjusting for age and risk, which suggests that these organisms may be causes of NGU. Adenoviruses and herpes simplex type 1 were associated with oral sex and sex between male partners, suggesting that oral-genital contact may be an important mechanism of NGU pathogen transmission. Additionally, NGU was associated with history of oral sex with new partners. Together, these findings suggest that fellatio plays a significant role as a cause of the syndrome. In an accompanying editorial, H. Hunter Handsfield, MD, of the Battelle Center for Public Health Research and Evaluation and the University of Washington, called the landmark Melbourne study “a good interim step” whose findings “significantly advance the field,” but points out that many important questions remain yet to be answered. The study provides important insight for both heterosexual and homosexual men, as it indicates that NGU may be caused by otherwise harmless organisms shared by monogamous partners. According to Handsfield, this finding may influence clinical management of partners and counseling of couples. In addition, oral sex was associated with NGU in which no pathogen was detected, indicating that there are causes of NGU that have yet to be identified. The study also found that type 1 herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), the usual cause of oral herpes (cold sores), accounted for more NGU cases than did HSV-2; that herpetic NGU was most commonly associated with fellatio; and that up to a third of NGU cases associated with known pathogens were not associated with increased numbers of white blood cells in urethral secretions.

HERPES TREATMENT ADVICE

Female genital herpes pictures

The image shows an example of the herpes virus in a female. For more images of both male and female herpes please visit http://xherpes.com/herpespictures.php

Early stages of genital herpes - Picture

A picture showing the early stages of genital herpes in a male. Choraphor is an effective treatment and will kill the herpes virus on contact thus reducing the length and frequency of herpes outbreaks.

Experts say chlamydia's on the rise

Experts say chlamydia's on the rise

Of all the countries in the industrialized world, the U.S. has the highest rate of sexually transmitted disease (STD) infection.

The North Carolina-based American Social Health Association (ASHA) estimates that 19 million new STD cases occur annually in the nation. That number rises steadily each year.

Among the most common STDs in America is chlamydia. Caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, the disease is contracted during oral, vaginal or anal sex with an infected person through vaginal fluid and semen. Men and women can contract chlamydia, and serious complications can arise in either sex, often before symptoms of the disease are noticed.

Chlamydia infections have been on the rise for the last 10 years. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, there were 929,462 reported cases of the disease in 2004, an increase of almost 6 percent compared to 2003. Between 2000 and 2004, the chlamydia infection rate increased by almost 48 percent among men and by 22 percent among women.

For women, the highest infection rates occur among African-Americans, who are more than seven times as likely to report chlamydia than whites, and among those ages 15 to 24. Men ages 20 to 24 are most likely to report the disease. African-American men are 11 times more likely to report infection than white men.

But health authorities say those numbers are misleading. In fact, chlamydia is far more prevalent than reports would suggest. Reported cases represent just a fraction of the total, as many people have no idea that they have the disease. The CDC estimates some 3 million Americans are infected with chlamydia each year.

The numbers are further clouded by the fact that improved screening methods and more sensitive tests may explain the reported infection rate increase. Because complications from chlamydia can be worse in women, health experts recommend that all sexually active women undergo annual screenings for chlamydia. Pregnant women, too, should be screened.

Up to 75 percent of women and 50 percent of men with chlamydia show no symptoms of the disease. When symptoms do occur, they typically show up within one to three weeks of infection. One of the most obvious signs is a mucus or pus discharge from the penis or vagina. Pain during urination is also common.

In women, if the disease is left untreated, it can infect the cervix, fallopian tubes and urethra, and result in pelvic inflammatory disease (PID). This serious infection of the reproductive organs can lead to scarring and blockage of the fallopian tubes and result in infertility, ectopic pregnancy and chronic pelvic pain. Furthermore, pregnant women may pass the infection to their newborns, which become susceptible to both conjunctivitis (eye inflammation) and pneumonia.

In men, untreated chlamydia may lead to fever, swelling and a painful penile discharge - all signs of epididymitis, an inflammatory condition in the region around the testicles that can cause sterility. An estimated 250,000 men under the age of 35 develop acute cases of epididymitis each year.

Men and women are also susceptible to chlamydia infection of the throat or rectum via oral or anal sexual contact.

According to the ASHA, chlamydia also increases a person's risk of HIV infection by up to five times. "It is especially important for our young people to understand that having a sexually transmitted infection such as herpes or chlamydia significantly increases the risk of acquiring HIV infection if they are exposed to it," says ASHA president James Allen, M.D., M.P.H. "Most people do not understand or appreciate the ability of one infection to increase the risk of acquiring another infection - in this case, one that is much more serious."

Nancy Merrill, a member of myDNA's Medical Advisory Board, said everyone who is sexually active should get tested for chlamydia on a regular basis.

"Since there are usually no symptoms that one has chlamydia, most sexually active persons do not have a clue that they are infected."

"Since chlamydia is currently the leading cause of infertility in the United States, all sexually active persons (especially teenagers) should request that the test be done every 6 to 12 months," Merrill said.

Fortunately, screening for the disease is easy and effective. All it requires is a simple swab collection of fluid from the vagina or penis. The fluid is then sent to a lab for testing for the chlamydia bacteria. Tests also may be conducted on urine samples.

In a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers recommend that teenage girls especially be screened for the disease. The study of 3,202 sexually active females ages 12 to 19 found that age alone puts this group in danger.

"We couldn't predict which females in our study would be at increased risk for chlamydia just because they didn't use condoms consistently, or because they had a new sexual partner, or even because they previously had a sexually transmitted disease," says Johns Hopkins adolescent medicine specialist and study author Gale Burstein, M.D., M.P.H. "The only risk factor we found for chlamydia infection was being a teenager."

Burstein and colleagues say their results indicate that screening twice per year by a family doctor may be the best way to prevent serious complications from the disease. "Current guidelines for adolescent primary care call for yearly screenings, but that's not enough," Burstein says. "These sexually active teenagers need more frequent testing."

A positive test for chlamydia does not spell doom for the patient. The disease is curable with antibiotics. The doctor will typically prescribe one of four drugs: azithromycin, doxycycline, erythromycin or ofloxacin.

If you know you have chlamydia, it's important to tell your sexual partners, so they can also be tested and treated, as well as to abstain from intercourse until you no longer have the disease. The best way to prevent the disease is through abstinence, but use of a female or latex condom is also effective.

Herpes