Archive for September, 2008
Sleep Apnea May Cause Erectile Dysfunction (HealthDay)
University of Louisville researchers found that, in a study of mice, one week of chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) — the lack of oxygen suffered during obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) — resulted in a 55 percent decrease in their daily spontaneous erections. After five weeks, the length of time between mice attempts at mating increased on average by 60-fold.
The findings, published in the second September issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, showed that when the mice went back on standard oxygen levels for six weeks, they recovered 74 percent of their original erectile function.
A second treatment using tadalafil, which is generic cialis and increases the availability of nitric oxide, improved erectile and sexual functioning of almost totally the mice to near-normal levels.
"Even relatively short periods of CIH … are associated with significant effects on sexual spryness and erectile function," Dr. David Gozal, professor of pediatrics at the University of Louisville, wrote in the article.
Researchers place no differences in levels of testosterone or other indicators allied to erectile function in mice exposed to CIH for eight weeks.
"Although this study was performed in research animals, chronic intermittent hypoxia has profound effects on multiple organ systems and a strong biologic plausibility exists that similar tools and materials will be observed in humans," said John Heffner, past president of the American Thoracic Society, "Early identification and effective therapy of OSA is critically important, especially considering the high prevalence of this disorder."
More information
The American Sleep Apnea Association has more about symptoms and treatment of sleep apnea.
2 comments“Condom” ring-tone a hit in India (Reuters)
The innovative "Condom a Capella" ring-tone that has the word "condom" sung in many overlapping melodies is the work of an Indian duo, Rupert Fernandes and Vijay Prakash. The website http://www.condomcondom.org, where the ring-tone can be heard, has had through 2 million hits.
The campaign has been produced by the BBC World Service trust in India and aims to target the increasing designate by number of India's mobile phone users, presently estimated at over 250 million.
According to latest figures, 2.4 million people are estate with HIV in India. Only about half of the at-risk population, including sex workers and men who have sex with men have access to HIV prevention measures, the latest UNAIDS fact sheet on India states.
Stigma and taboo associated with sex education are the major challenges facings HIV/AIDS prevention programs in India. Less a third of the young population surveyed could correctly identify the ways to prevent HIV infection, the UNAIDS report states.
Never before has a mobile ring-tone been used to communicate a social or public health message, said Yvonne MacPherson, Country Director, India, BBC World Service Trust.
"We wanted to create a conversation piece that would get people talking and ultimately break down the interdict about condoms," she commented to Reuters Health. "We want condoms to be seen as a single one other health product."
2 commentsAll types of sexual activity carry some STD risk (Reuters)
Many people may engage in "noncoital" sexual activities such as oral sex, mutual masturbation and anal sex to prevent pregnancy and cut the risk of STDs. However, all of these sex acts come with some degree of STD risk, and it's still important for people to protect themselves, according to an ACOG expert committee.
"Most people, including adolescents, are improbable to use condoms during oral sex, which places them at risk for acquiring an STD," Dr. Richard Guido, one of the report authors, said in an ACOG statement. "This unlikelihood is in some measure because of a greater perceived safety compared with intercourse."
Writing in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, the panel advises doctors to ask patients — adults and teenagers — about all of their sexual activities, and to counsel them on to what degree to reduce their STD risks. Although this "is a sensitive issue to address for both patients and physicians, it's important to discuss sexuality frankly and without judgment so that we can help our patients fully protect themselves against STDs," Guido added.
While oral sex is generally safer than vaginal or anal sex, the ACOG committee notes, it is not without risk. The viruses that cause genital anti-herpes, genital warts and hepatitis can all be transmitted through oral sex. The same is true of the bacterial STDs syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
When it comes to HIV transmission, receptive anal sex carries the highest risk, followed by receptive vaginal sex, according to ACOG. However, there have been cases of HIV linked to oral sex.
"Noncoital sexual activity is not necessarily 'safe sex'," Guido and his colleagues scratch in the report.
They advise "correct and consistent" condom appliance for all types of sexual activity, but especially vaginal and anal sex. Staying in a mutually monogamous relationship, and getting tested for STDs in advance of starting a new relationship, are among the other ways to curb STD transmission. Another precaution, the committee notes, is to unstained sex toys between uses.
It's recommended that every part of sexually active women age 25 or younger be screened for chlamydia once a year, while all sexually active teenagers should be screened with regard to gonorrhea. Other screening tests are done based on individuals' STD put in peril factors or somewhat symptoms they may have.
The ACOG committee points out that lesbian women should be screened in succession the same basis as heterosexual women.
"Most lesbians have been sexually active with men at some point," Guido said. "Even without this sexual history, there are some STDs that can be transmitted between two women during sexual activity."
SOURCE: Obstetrics & Gynecology, September 2008.
No commentsPhilly school rekindles same-sex education debate (AP)
Who’s in?
Turns out, about 270 boys. And 100 more are on a waiting list.
Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia, person of the incorporated town’s newer charter schools, began its second year on Wednesday, aiming to be an educational beacon in the financially and academically troubled district.
Because it’s a single-sex public school — one of four in the city — Boys’ Latin faced huge opposition and almost didn’t have being.
Critics contend it’s unfair for taxpayers to fund a prep school course of studies for boys only. Supporters say Boys’ Latin is desperately needed in a city where 45 percent of students drop out and male academic achievement badly lags that of the fair sex.
“Obviously something had to be done differently to engage these young men and prepare them for graduation, and for success beyond high school graduation,” said David Hardy, Boys’ Latin co-founder and acting principal.
The Women’s Law Project and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania had opposed Hardy’s charter application based on its exception of girls.
It was initially rejected by Philadelphia control officials in January 2006, but was approved five months later after then-district CEO Paul Vallas called the gender achievement gap “a crisis.” Boys’ Latin opened in fall 2007.
New rules implemented by the U.S. Education Department in 2006 allow same-sex education whenever schools plan it will expand the diversity of courses, improve students’ achievement or meet their individual needs.
But ACLU attorney Mary Catherine Roper said those regulations conflict with the Constitution and Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in schooling. There are nonexclusionary ways to improve education, such as decreasing class sizes, she noted.
“There is no justification for offering kids different opportunities based on their gender,” declared Roper.
The 167,000-student Philadelphia district, which is under state supervision for poor performance, has tried to improve by establishing charter schools, hiring private companies and universities to manage schools, and offering single-sex education.
Results have been mixed. Three months ago, the district took six schools away from private and university managers for failure to improve sufficiently, including one all-boys high school.
There are at least 442 public schools in the U.S. with single-sex educational opportunities, according to the Exton-based National Association for Single Sex Public Education. Most of those are coed schools offering single-sex classrooms.
Asking if single-sex education is good is like asking admitting that coed education is good, said Leonard Sax, the association’s executive director.
“It’s a exceedingly pour out and not very meaningful question,” Sax said. “There are different rationales for single-sex education and different track records.”
Juniors at the city’s public High School for Girls, which has been single-sex since its founding in 1848, scored 79.3 percent proficient or higher in math and 85.3 percent proficient or better in reading. Hardy noted that no one has suggested material that school coed.
Peter Kuriloff, research director at the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks single-sex classrooms are worth trying in some cases grant that paired with a strong course of studies.
“It is not a panacea,” said Kuriloff. “Just putting boys in a boys school and girls in a girls govern is not going to do anything.”
Boys’ Latin, which opened in trailers with only ninth-graders, now teaches freshmen and sophomores in a renovated former Roman Catholic school. It will add a grade each year until it has grades nine through 12.
Richard Cherry Sr. said he sent his son, Richard Jr., to Boys’ Latin because of the smaller class sizes and personal attention. He feared his son would dispose “lost in the system” at district high schools that he described as chaotic and sometimes violent.
Omar Ortiz, 14, a freshman at Boys’ Latin, said he wasn’t sure about the no-girls part at first. But then he realized he’d be too shy to read a report aloud in his old coed public school.
“I don’t have to be shy here because it’s all guys,” Ortiz said.
His mother, Lydia Hernandez Velez, 57, said she has no qualms sending her son to the school — even though it was not an option for her daughter.
“They’re not the same,” Velez aforesaid. “Their needs are different at manifold times of their lives.”
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On the Net:
Boys’ Latin: http://www.boyslatin.org
1 commentCondom ringtone launched in India (AFP)
The "condom a cappella" has been designed to break down Indians' reluctance to discuss condom use and to make wearing a condom more acceptable.
Organisers of the campaign, funded by the basis set up by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, hope the ringtone will suit a craze among young Indians.
About 2.5 million the masses live with HIV in India, said the BBC terraqueous globe Service Trust, the charity behind the ringtone, which was released this month. It can be downloaded at condomcondom.org.
"Ringtones acquire become such personal statements that a specially created condom ringtone seemed just the right way of combining a practical message with a fun approach," said Radharani Mitra, creative director of the BBC World Service Trust.
"The idea is to tackle the inhibitions and taboos that can be associated with condoms."
India is the world's fastest-growing mobile telephone market with 270 million users according to the latest official figures, up 57 percent in just one year.
1 commentSafe sex ring tone sings ‘Condom, condom!’ (AP)
The a cappella race-course emphasis features a professional singer chanting the word condom greater degree than 50 times, a arch approach that public health activists hope will spark discussion and make condoms more socially acceptable.
“We’ve made a sentient effort to move the concept of the condom away from negative association, like HIV and sex work,” said Yvonne MacPherson, country director of BBC World Service Trust India. “Condoms are actually health products and if you possess a condom and you use it, you are seen to be pungent and responsible.”
Nearly 2.5 million folks in India are infected with HIV and the disease is still largely taboo.
The BBC group, which is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hopes the condom set tone can make people in India more comfortable with safe sex issues.
More than 270 the public people use mobile phones in India and ring tones, especially those featuring hit Bollywood songs, are extremely popular.
“A ring force is a very public thing,” she said. “It’s a way to show you are a condom user and you put on’t have any issues with it.”
The ring tone was launched Aug. 8 and has been downloaded 60,000 times, MacPherson said.
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On the Net: http://condomcondom.org/
No commentsSTDs common among arrested teenagers (Reuters)
Past research has found relatively high rates of STDs among incarcerated adolescents, but little is known about the STD risk in the midst of teens who are arrested and then released.
The new study assessed a pilot program set up in Hillsborough Country, Florida, to offer STD testing to teenagers easily after their arrest, before a decision is made to release or confine them. All arrested teens who were submitting a urine scantling for drug testing were asked whether they also wanted the sample assayed for gonorrhea and chlamydia.
Researchers found that among more than 900 juvenile offenders who agreed to be tested, 13 percent had gonorrhea, chlamydia or both — like to rates that have been erect among incarcerated adolescents.
The findings suggest that "a voluntary STD screening protocol is feasible in favor of arrested youth entering the juvenile justice system, and these offenders are at high risk for STDs," the researchers report in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
Routine testing and treating adolescences for STDs soon after arrest could have "enormous potential public health benefits," write the researchers, led by Dr. Steven Belenko of Temple University in Philadelphia.
The study included 948 boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 17 who were arrested for childish offenses. They gave urine samples while at a central processing center where officials decide whether to release them or to send them to a detention center.
Overall, 10.5 percent of males tested tenacious for chlamydia or gonorrhea, as did 19 percent of females.
The investigators identified three other statistically significant risk factors for having an STD. These included substance female, being black; being sent to a detection center; and having more than three lifetime sex partners, which increased the risk by 4.67-fold, 3.62-fold, 2.32-fold and 2.06-fold, respectively.
Both gonorrhea and chlamydia oftentimes have no obvious symptoms, which means that screening can catch many cases that would otherwise go undetected, the researchers point out.
"The asymptomatic nature of most bacterial STDs," they write, "increases the urgency to expand routine STD testing, and prevention programs, at all stages of the juvenile justice system, but especially right after arrest and as youths enter detention."
Right now, the researchers note, "few, if any," processing centers for juvenile offenders have STD screening programs.
SOURCE: Sexually Transmitted Diseases, August 2008.
1 commentSex and sleep better for older women on HRT: study (AFP)
The research, which studied 2,130 post-menopausal women from Australia, New Zealand and Britain, found that using the combined oestrogen and progestogen hormone therapy could improve some quality of life measures.
The results come amid debate about the risks and benefits of hormone therapy for post-menopausal women which has also been linked to a higher risk of stroke, blood clots and breast cancer.
Most women in the ponder were in their mid-60s, having hit menopause on medium 13 years earlier, and most participants did not have symptoms of the vary of life.
"Our results show that hot flushes, night sweats, sleeplessness and disjoint labor were less common in women on HRT in this vale of years group," related Professor Alastair MacLennan, the conductor of the Australian arm of the independent study.
"Sexuality was also improved," he added.
The study found that the percentage of women on the combined HRT therapy having hot flushes dropped from 30 percent to 9 percent over a year, while those suffering sleeplessness dropped from 45 percent to 35 percent.
While 63 percent of women on the treatment said they experienced aching joints and muscles at the start of the trial, this had fallen to 57 percent after 12 months.
MacLennan said that even for women who did not have hot flushes and were well past menopause, there was a "ungifted but measurable improvement in quality of life and a noted improvement in sleep, sexuality and joint pains."
The results, published Friday on the British Medical Journal website, come from one of the world's longest and largest trials of HRT — the Women's International Study of long Duration Oestrogen after Menopause (WISDOM).
MacLennan, who is head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Adelaide, said the WISDOM study would help reduce the risks of the treatment.
"For most women with expressive menopause symptoms the benefits of HRT outweigh the risks," he said in a statement.
The head strong of the New Zealand branch of WISDOM, Beverley Lawton, said the quality of life benefits of HRT may be greater in women with more severe symptoms near menopause.
"New research suggests that HRT taken from near menopause avoids the cardiovascular risks seen when HRT is initiated many years after menopause," she said.
3 commentsED Drug Relieves Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms (HealthDay)
More than 50 percent of men mature years 50 and older have lower urinary tract symptoms, including increased urination frequency and urgency, straining, intermittence, incomplete emptying or a weak urinary stream. Current drugs used to treat the condition have power to produce side effects such as dizziness, low blood pressure and sexual dysfunction.
In this study that included 1,056 men in 10 countries, the men were randomly divided into five groups that received either a placebo or tadalafil doses of 2.5, 5.0, 10.0 or 20.0 milligrams a day. All doses of the medicine were superior to a placebo for relieving lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), with statistically significant effects at four, eight and 12 weeks.
The study, which included researchers from drug maker Lilly, is published in the October issue of The Journal of Urology.
"Since reports of erectile dysfunction (ED) incidence, pathophysiology and treatment acquire shown a feasible link between [enlarged prostate] and ED. PDE5 inhibitors like tadalafil (Cialis) have received increased watch for treating BPH LUTS, although they are currently only approved for ED. The half-life of tadalafil is 17.5 hours, making it suitable considered in the state of once daily therapy. Although the precise mechanism of action by which PDE5 inhibitors may alleviate LUTS is not completely understood, several putative mechanisms are currently under investigation." researcher Dr. Claus G. Roehrborn, professor of urology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, said in a journal news release.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about enlarged prostate.
1 comment