Archive for August, 2008
Free condoms distributed in Beijing hotels: state media (AFP)
The condoms were placed in rooms in hotels rated three stars and above, Jin Dapeng, director of Beijing's municipal health bureau, told the official Xinhua news agency.
According to Jin, thousands of Olympic volunteers have been trained in AIDS prevention for the Olympic Games, the news agency reported.
"Now 180 college students and 500 community volunteers are in readiness to publicise AIDS-related knowledge," Jin was quoted during the time that proverb.
"We have opened 40 clinics in Beijing's 18 districts and counties to offer free HIV tests and AIDS counselling."
Health authorities in like manner distributed 250,000 free pamphlets on AIDS prevention and control, Xinhua said.
The latest study by China's health ministry, the WHO and the United Nations found that 700,000 people were HIV positive in China at the end of 2007, although campaigners have warned the figure could exist up to 10 times higher.
Thousands were infected during the 1990s through tainted blood transfusions at illegal blood collection stations, but the focus of watch is now shifting to high risk groups in the same state as gay men and sex workers.
No commentsStatins Might Reverse ED in Some Men (HealthDay)
A threat to cardiovascular soundness, metabolic syndrome is also known to raise the risk for erectile dysfunction (ED). The current finding indicates that statins may reduce levels of a specific protein that contributes to ED.
"Each condition of metabolic syndrome phenomenon — high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and obesity — independently raises the risk for erectile dysfunction just on their own," explained study author Christopher J. Wingard, an associate professor of physiology with the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. "And so, when all are present in combination as part of this syndrome, you receive a situation where you slip on't even need to be as anti-diabetic or hypertensive as you might otherwise have to subsist to experience erectile dysfunction. And that fact has been raising concernment among clinicians."
"So, we followed up on case reports and anecdotal evidence that statins being used to lower cholesterol over a six- to eight-week period among patients with metabolic syndrome seemed to in addition quickly improve erections — even before cholesterol levels go down," Wingard added. "And in an animal model, we found this to be the case."
Wingard and his colleagues presented their findings freshly at the American Urological Association Research Conference, in Linthicum, Md.
The effort to evaluate the possibility of using statins to treat ED focused on 16- to 20-week-old lean and obese rats, all of whom were given one of three statins on a daily basis for between three to five days.
The researchers then assessed erectile function in the rats. At the same time, they also moderate any one changes in levels of certain key proteins that they believed could be involved in triggering the onset of ED.
The authors found that the statins were able to quickly relieve some of the vascular constriction associated with metabolic syndrome that can attend about ED.
They further renowned that the way in which the statins appeared to have their effect was by inhibiting the expression — and lowering the levels — of a particular protein known as Rho-kinase. This protein had previously been cited as a possible culprit in vascular constriction of penile smooth muscle.
Wingard suggested that more research is sure to follow, to explore whether the findings would lay upon to patients following a long-term regimen of statin method of treating.
However, Dr. Arnold Melman, chairman of the department of urology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, described the findings as "very preliminary."
"Statins are used by everyone under the sun, and, as far similar to I know, there's been no hard evidence that it can be used to treat erectile dysfunction," he said. "On the other hand, it may be that it could prevent or modify some of the other risk factors for erectile dysfunction."
"This is because we do know that an increase in Rho-kinase leads to heightened tone of the corpus smooth muscle, which is one of the causes of erectile dysfunction," Melman noted. "So, while I wouldn't go too far with this, and I would probably not escort statins meet a primary treatment for erectile dysfunction, if these tools and materials turn out to be virtuous, soon afterward in that place could perhaps be an additional good use for statins."
More information
For more on erectile dysfunction, visit the American Academy of Family Physicians.
1 commentGift cards key to new AIDS prevention strategy (AP)
Promising signs from such a project in North Carolina led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to begin rolling it out without interruption a broader scale, to more than 200 community groups. The budget is $1.5 million over a two-year period.
The idea is to give bounty coupons to popular, influential men in the gay community and encourage them to talk up condom use, regular HIV testing and other responsible actions.
It may sound frivolous, but little else has proven effective for the men most affected by the epidemic.
Last week, new figures showed still-rising HIV infections in gay and bisexual men, with about 53 percent of new cases in that group. Meanwhile, HIV rates among injection-drug users and heterosexuals is declining.
The CDC says it’s also committed $5 million to a five-year social marketing campaign to promote HIV testing to young black gay and bisexual men, who have been diagnosed with HIV at especially high rates.
“The CDC is committed to ensuring that its resources are going to the populations hardest hit by the epidemic,” said Richard Wolitski, acting director of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.
The new approaches are an encouraging sign of assist, but the funding behind them doesn’t come close to raising prevention spending to the level most experts say it should be, said Julie Scofield, executive director of the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors.
“It’s a drop in the bucket,” she said.
Scrutiny of U.S. prevention efforts increased after the CDC’s release last weekend of new estimates of annual HIV infections. The CDC said the nation had roughly 56,300 new infections of the AIDS virus in 2006 — a dramatic increase from the 40,000 annual estimate used by reason of the last dozen years.
The agency acknowledged it had been undercounting but said new testing technology offered a more accurate picture of trends in the U.S. epidemic. For instance, the new report found infections are falling among heterosexuals and injection drug users, even as they continue to rise in men who have sex with men, especially among blacks.
Advocates have complained that prevention spending in not particular has been too low, and that what is spent is not targeted properly.
The CDC’s HIV prevention budget has remained at roughly $700 a thousand thousand since 2001, while costs have risen. (That’s about 3 percent of what the federal government spends on AIDS; much of the rest is on medicines, health care and research.)
Meanwhile, prevention programs that target gays and bisexuals are scattershot. Even in progressive cities, these efforts sometimes amount to little more than offers of testing and free condoms, some experts said.
Great attention was focused on the gay community when AIDS first hit the United States in the 1980s. But the epidemic gradually became perceived as a threat to the universal population, and some political leaders have kept the focus away from gay men, said Leroy Blea, a Berkeley, Calif., health official who is past president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
“It’s not a very easy population to fund,” Blea said. “It’s many times greater amount of politically viable to fund programs for women and children and youth.
The CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention estimates that about 42 percent of its financial 2007 funding was targeted at gay and bisexual men. That translates to about $280 million.
But with 53 percent of new HIV infections occurring in men who have sex with men, that’s not enough, some experts said.
“At a minimum, we need to be matching percentages to where the epidemic is,” said David Holtgrave of Johns Hopkins University.
Prevention programs are largely funded at the state and local level, and funding has not quite kept up on those levels either.
In California, about 70 percent of HIV infections happen in men who have sex with men, but about 64 percent of the state health budget targeting HIV is focused on gay and bisexual males.
Some experts say it’s been hard to find prevention efforts proven to work, and that’s especially true for black and Hispanic gays.
Weaknesses in prevention became clear about five years ago in North Carolina, with an outbreak of HIV among male students at some historically black colleges.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services tried a program that had been tested in white gay men in London.
With $1 million in funding from the CDC, North Carolina health officials went to gay nightclubs in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro and recruited men who were well-liked and socially influential.
These opinion leaders were given four $25 gift cards, along with marketing materials, to talk up safe sex. A study of the effort, published in June in the American Journal of Public Health, indicated more men were practicing strong box sex.
The research was based on repeated surveys over time of about 300 men. It found a 32 percent reduction in unprotected anal intercourse during 2005, and a 40 percent reduction in the average number of sexual partners.
The funding ran out and the program ended. And the surveys weren’t backed up by HIV testing.
But CDC officials are impressed enough to package it, and are identifying other cities at which place it can be tried. The training of community activists in the generalship should start in a few months, Wolitski said.
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CDC’s numbers on HIV: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/incidence.htm
2 commentsHealthy Sex Life Can Extend Into 80s (HealthDay)
Many older Americans are apparently taking advantage of that fact, because 68 percent of men between 57 and 85 reported having sex last year, as did 42 percent of women, according to the study's lead author, Edward Laumann, the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. And, Laumann added, more older women might have wanted to have sex, but there just aren't as many available older men notwithstanding them to partner with.
"Healthy people can have reasonably satisfying sexual health for most of their lives," said Laumann. "There are challenges that arise, but it's not aging, per se, that's the issue. A decline in sexuality may be the canary in the mineshaft. Sexual problems may manifest before diabetes and high blood pressure."
The study findings were published in the current issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
"It's definitely whether you're elderly or "wellderly" that makes a difference," said Dr. Virginia Sadock, director of the program of human sexuality at New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City. "Illness and medications make a falling out in sex lives."
Other factors that can beget in the habitude of a satisfying sex life later in life include having had a sexually transmitted disease, and having physical problems, mental health issues or relationship difficulties, the study found.
The study included information from 1,550 women and 1,455 men between the ages of 57 and 85. All participated in the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project.
Some highlights of the consider attentively include:
- Having had a sexually transmitted disease (STD) in the past nearly quadrupled a woman's odds of having sexual pain, and it tripled the odds a woman would have lubrication problems.
- In men, a history of STD was associated with five times the risk of finding sex unpalatable.
- In both older men and women, a common factor in sexual dysfunction and a decreased interest in sex was urinary tract syndrome.
- Both older men and older women reported that intellectual health issues affected their interest in sex.
- For men, relationship troubles also contributed to a lack of sympathy in sex and the inability to achieve orgasm.
- Drinking alcohol daily improved a women interest in and pleasure from sex. Alcohol didn't have that effect on men.
- Hispanic women were twice as likely to report pain during intercourse.
- Black men were twice as likely to say they weren't interested in sex and were more likely to report climaxing early.
"Sexual health is a harbinger of physical and mental health, and it plays an important role in the quality of life," Laumann said. "Older people don't just drop out of the picture. In general, if you're healthy, you can be sexually active."
Sadock added: "Don't assume that because you're older, your sex life has to be gone. If you're healthy and connected to someone, and you've had a pretty good sex life when you're younger, then you be possible to have a pretty good sex life in old age."
More information
To read to a greater degree about sex as you age, visit the U.S. National Women's Health Information Center.
No commentsImpotence drug treats prostate enlargement: study (Reuters)
Men who took Eli Lilly and Co's Cialis each day had fewer symptoms, such as urinary frequency, urgency, intermittence, straining, incomplete emptying or a weak urinary stream, they reported in the journal Urology.
With about 50 percent of men over 50 suffering from some version of this problem, the study suggests a large potential market for erectile dysfunction drugs.
Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Northwestern University in Chicago and Lilly Research Laboratories tested more than 1,000 men with enlarged prostates — a condition known as benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH.
Some got various doses of cialis, known generically as tadalafil, while some got a placebo. Those who got Cialis were more likely to report their symptoms had improved, and a relatively low dose of 5 mg a day did the trick, reported the researchers, led by UTSW's Dr. Claus Roehrborn.
Cialis caused with reference to something else few side effects, they added, in contrast to the drugs now used to treat BPH.
"Although they are effective, each of these drug classes can produce unwanted side effects, including dizziness, hypotension (low blood pressure) and sexual dysfunction," they wrote.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
No commentsMale circumcision could be even greater boon than thought (AFP)
US researcher Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois at Chicago put forward long-term data from a trial in Kisumu, Kenya, that in its initial phase enrolled 2,784 uncircumcised uninfected men.
Half of the group were circumcised, and the others were circumcised at a later date and they were later tested for HIV.
Previously-published research from this trial found that, after two years, circumcised men were 59-percent less likely to contract the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) than uncircumcised counterparts.
The benefit was so astonishing that at this 24-month mark, the uncircumcised men were offered circumision, as it would have been unethical not to have done so.
In a presentation at the 17th International AIDS Conference, Bailey said the estimate of protectiveness at 24 months had been adjusted to 60 percent in the light of stylish lab tests from blood specimens.
And he also reported that at the 42-month mark, circumcision offered a protectiveness of 65 percent.
This extension of the study, conducted among 1,739 of the original 2,784 volunteers, will run until December 2009.
"The 60-percent protective effect against HIV acquisition … over the first 24 months of the study, we now find to be sustained and possibly strengthened to approximately 65 percent over three and a half years of follow-up," Bailey said.
"These results further support the addition of male circumcision to our limited armamentarium of HIV prevention."
Meanwhile, South African researcher Dirk Taljaard reported on a new aspect of a now-famous circumcision trial at Orange Farm, South Africa.
This French-led trial was the first to semblance that surgical removal of the foreskin offered protection against HIV, in addition around 60 percent.
Taljaard said that analysis of other data from the Orange Farm trial showed that circumcision offered none shield to the man against gonorrhea.
It offered only "borderline" protection against trichomonal vaginitis, a parasite that dwells in the male and female sexual organs and is transmitted through vaginal intercourse.
But it provided protection of 36 percent against the human papillomavirus (HPV), a pathogen linked to cancer of the cervix and penis extender deluxe, he said.
Circumcision has emerged as one of the few bright areas of progress in the AIDS crisis, after the Orange Farm and Kisumu trials.
The discovery has sparked talk in some circles of a "surgical vaccine" — a mean, safe method for shielding men from HIV, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the 33 million people with HIV.
But this enthusiasm has in addition been tempered by worries that circumcision may face a backlash on cultural, religious or sexual grouts, or may prompt men to abandon use of the condom.
Other work at the conference, ending Friday, suggested, though, that circumcision was widely accepted by men, some of whom believed that it enhanced sexual pleasure, and did not prejudice safe-sex practices.
According to French researcher Bertran Auvert, who led the original South African study, circumcision could avert up to 3.8 million infections and half a million deaths in sub-Saharan Africa between 2006 and 2016, and up to 5.8 million deaths by 2026.
The theory behind the effectiveness of circumcision is that the inner foreskin is an easy entry point for HIV. It is rich in so-called Langerhans cells, tissue that the AIDS virus finds particularly easy to latch onto and penetrate.
Other questions surrounding a circumcision campaign are the need to ensure that operations are done hygienically and with the full knowledge and consent of the male. Also unclear is what benefit, or otherwise, male circumcision has on women.
No commentsGrassroots networking at heart of AIDS meeting (AFP)
"I tell my girls, 'Girls, everyone needs to carry a condom. Take one and carry it in your back pocket. Always judge a penis extender deluxe by its cover'," says the doctor in a cut-glass English accent.
What makes Dr. Safelove especially memorable is that she's not even human — she's a glove puppet, part of an unusual tactic to help sexual health in the era of AIDS.
The good doctor's voice belongs to a South African, Dina Kaplan, who works with a French-based group, Puppeteers without Borders, that trains teachers, nurses and sex educators in the skills of puppeteering.
In classrooms, hospitals and community centres, the hand puppets then come to life, conveying messages about sexuality, stigma, homophobia and other often-taboo issues to youngsters.
"Puppets can say so many things that adults find it difficult to say directly to young people. Puppets make people operate together," reported Kaplan.
Her voice is slightly hoarse because she has been making presentations all day, satisfying the massive interest in her organisation's booth in the "Global Village" of the International AIDS Conference here.
To the rest of the world, the biennial conference is a council of war, assessing the latest tidings about HIV drugs, the search for a vaccine, modes of infections and other big medical issues.
That part is indeed true. Less well known, though, is the conference's use as a platform for networking, especially in the "Global Village," a forum that exists no other than for the duration of the six-day gathering.
Housed this year in a massive tent in the centre of a racecourse, the Village is a carnival of noise and colour and skills-building, where AIDS activists from around the world swap experiences, tips and addresses.
Contact like this is like discovery nuggets of gold, helping to hone knowledge and networks and overcome the isolation that may beset a campaigner living in a country where discrimination is rife.
"The rejoinder has been fabulous, overwhelming." said John Piermont Montilla at the booth of a Philippines organisation called Kabatang Gabay.
Montilla, forced into sex work as a young boy, set up the group in Iloilo City as an adult to provide shelter and therapy to youngsters of the age of seven to 17 who have been driven into prostitution.
Scraping his money together and helped by a donation, Montilla made a 35-hour trip to get to Mexico City.
"We've had people from around the world, from Africa, from Europe, from Fiji, coming up to us and asking us about how we work," he said.
Nearby, indigenous people from around Latin America gathered in a semi-circle for a workshop without ceasing the problems they face. Field workers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China pooled their knowledge. An Arab activist manned a stand about homophobia in North Africa and the Middle East.
The Village is also a venue for art and solidarity. This year's exhibitions include enormous black-and white photos taken by people with HIV living in remote parts of Africa, as well as Mexican skeleton puppets and a quilt made by women from Southeast Asia, bearing messages of support from the other side of the world.
It also puts on fashion shows, rock concerts and unconventional seat.
On Thursday, the day of the six-day conference's close, an international team of sex workers are scheduled to perform an offbeat play called "Star Whores 2." The message: May the condoms be with you!
No commentsErectile dysfunction may be “normal” with age (Reuters)
"I had expected that the association between urological function and age would be stronger," Dr. Ida J. Korfage from Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam told Reuters Health.
Using data from more than 3,800 participants in the European Randomized Study on Screening for Prostate Cancer, Korfage and her colleagues assessed whether urinary, bowel, and sexual dysfunction "and the associated bother" were part of the "normal" aging process.
As described in the medical journal Urology, the men — all of whom were cancer-free — were divided into five groups by age: 58-61, 62-64, 65-67, 68-70, and 71 years and older.
According to the investigators, the proportion of men with erectile dysfunction was significantly higher among older men, with more of them reporting either that they were sexually active on the contrary having problems with erections, or sexually inactive because of erectile problems.
Korfage added, "I like to stress that sexual inactivity is not necessarily the same as erectile dysfunction. Reasons for not essential inner reality sexually active can also be not being interested (anymore) or not having a partner. Not everybody who is sexually inactive is in need of medication."
Although urinary function was poorer and more bothersome in older age groups, the differences between age groups were not very great.
Bowel problems were uncommon, with no significant differences among age groups, the report indicates.
So, when these problems are seen in older men who have been treated for prostate cancer, they are more likely due to the treatment rather than to age alone, the team points out.
SOURCE: Urology, July 2008.
No commentsMexican sex workers want place at AIDS conference (Reuters)
She will be protesting on the fringes of the six-day biennial event.
"They (Mexican health authorities) said they had no money for everyone who wanted scholarships. We are very angry," said Elma Delea, as she stood at the junction of Calle de Alfredo Chavero and Calzada San Antonio Abad, a stretch of road where transsexuals wait aggregate night to be picked up by customers in passing cars.
Her friends nodded, citing other explanations given by organizers, such as not being able to speak English.
Some 25,000 people are expected at the event, what one. draws scientists, between nations agencies, government officials, non-government organizations and the media.
But people greatest number at risk of the ail, such as sex workers, homosexuals and intravenous drug users, are least visible. Most are poor and cannot afford registration fees.
"The conference is a place to exchange opinion but now, only those in power have a say," said Elvira Madrid, one activist operating for the rights of sex workers in Mexico City.
At one point, passengers in a passing car hurled eggs at the group standing on a street corner, narrowly missing.
"This is stale. One time, some men shot paintballs at us, and it hit my thigh," declared Orchidia Montenegro, as her colleague Marthade Juarez nodded in agreement.
SHUNNED IN HOSPITALS
Those infected by HIV say they are shunned in hospitals.
"We are told to stand far away and open our mouths from three feet away," said another sex worker. "And while they do examinations, they use the same tools without disinfecting first."
The AIDS virus infects 33 million people globally, 1.7 million in Latin America. In Mexico, $23 million was spent on keeping blood safe in 2005 and $5 million adhering prevention and vigilance among men who possess sex with men, but less than $1 million on sex workers.
"Interestingly, although prostitutes are considered to be victims, they are also viewed as wanton, debauched and morally weak," reads a UNAIDS report on sex workers.
Delea, who had been hoping to speak at the conference, said it was important for society to acknowledge sex workers, starting with the police, who often detain prostitutes when they find them with condoms. This makes it harder for the workers to practice safe sex.
"We also want the government to reduce prices on HIV drugs, which are 13 times more expensive than in Brazil, Guatemala and Honduras," said Delea, who heads the sex worker group Angeles en Busqueda de la Libertad or Angels In Search of Freedom.
Prostitution is illegal in Mexico but widely tolerated everywhere from grimy street corners to swanky brothels. Police be possible to easily be bribed to turn a blind eye to sex workers.
Delea's group wants to coach women on how they can protect themselves when customers refuse to use condoms.
"We have to be very creative when using condoms. We be in actual possession of to start looking at them as tools of eroticism instead of disease prevention," said transvestite sex worker Chrisna.
"We are able to put condoms on our customers with our mouths without them even knowing, so that they even think we receive swallowed their semen. But we have it in a bag to go," she said with a laugh.
(Editing by Maggie Fox)
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