Why Women Need to Start Talking More About HPV

Although most will never know it, four out of five women are likely to be infected with human papillomavirus (HPV) at some point in their lives. Using a condom doesn’t always protect your wellbeing against HPV, which is a major concern – not just to your sexual health, but to your overall wellness. HPV is the cause of virtually every case of cervical cancer, and yet a woman who finds out she has an HPV infection is not likely to tell even her closest friends. But why?

 

As HPV is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) there is a certain amount of social stigma attached to it, meaning that women would rather keep schtum than get help. However, having HPV is a lot more normal than you may think, so there’s no real reason to stay silent. Plus, knowing your HPV status can help you identify your risk of cervical cancer – which is highly preventable if caught in time. Usually, the virus is harmless, with most of the 6 million new cases of HPV in the United States each year clearing up on their own. If you have HPV, it does not mean that you have had a lot of partners, although having multiple partners does increase your risk. However, unless you have been vaccinated, it’s quite likely that you will get a HPV. A study of women with just one partner found that 50% had HPV infections three years into their monogamous relationships.

 

That is not to say that having HPV means you have been unfaithful. There is a good chance that you could have contracted the virus years or even decades ago, but the HPV has been hiding out in your system before developing into changes in cervical cells. There are plenty of stories from couples who have been married for 10 or 20 years and found themselves upended by HPV. It is impossible to know when and where you have contracted the disease, so don’t jump to relationship-rattling conclusions. You don’t even need to have sex to transmit HPV; the virus can be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, meaning that contact with the hands and oral sex can also spread the infection.

 

You may be worried about letting your teenagers have the HPV vaccination because it opens them up to the idea that they are about to have sex. However, getting the HPV vaccine isn’t about sex; it’s about cancer. The reason why it’s given to young people is to ensure they are vaccinated well in advance of their first sexual encounter, which, for some kids, can be age 13. Moreover, the body’s antibody responses are highest between the ages of nine and 15, which means the vaccine is at its most effective during that window. There are four HPV types that are responsible for 70% of cervical cancers and 90 percent of genital warts, and the current vaccines, which are recommended for young girls and boys, protect against all of them.

 

We cannot ignore HPV, in spite of the stigma attached. If more people were to turn to the vaccination, we might soon speak about the virus in the same way we do about polio or smallpox. However, letting HPV reign in our lives can be life-threatening. While most infections go away without any treatment, some infections with specific types of HPV can persist and develop into cervical cancer over years or even decades. Therefore, there are many good reasons why you need to talk about HPV – and schedule your annual OB/GYN exam if you haven’t done so yet.

Categories: cancer, cervical, cervical cancer, HPV, nbsp, stigma, stigma attached, Vaccine, Virus, Women

Meet the New STD (that Looks A Lot Like the Old Ones)

You may think you’ve heard all about sexually transmitted diseases, but now a new one poses a threat to your sexual health and wellbeing, albeit looking a lot like one of the old ones. According to wellness writer Charles Bankhead, ‘Once the scourge of older patients with a history of smoking and heavy alcohol use, head and neck cancer has evolved into a disease that strikes people – mostly men – in the prime of life. The driving force behind the molecular transformation is the same one that has received so much attention for causing cervical cancer in women: human papillomavirus (HPV). What’s more, the same oncologic strains drive both types of cancer.’

 

Bankhead notes, ‘About 37,000 new cases of head and neck cancer are diagnosed each year. HPV infection accounts for about two thirds of the total, according to the CDC. The “classic” tobacco- and alcohol-related head and neck cancer tended to be oral-cavity malignancies. In HPV-positive majority, oropharyngeal cancer predominates. Many people who were unaware of the role HPV plays in head and neck cancer probably learned about it last summer when actor Michael Douglas announced publicly that his head and neck cancer was caused by HPV infection, which he attributed to oral sex…Douglas’s announcement drew public attention to what authorities in the field have known for years: Head and neck cancer is essentially an STD, or at least a manifestation of one.’

 

Anil Chaturvedi, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute, points out that the incidence of oral-cavity cancer remained stable from 1973 to 1984, and then began a decline that continues today, reflecting trends in tobacco and alcohol use. The incidence of oropharyngeal cancer, on the other hand, increased gradually until about 2000. The proportion of HPV-positive oropharyngeal tumours has increased from 16% in the late 1980s to 72% since the turn of the century. Chaturvedi explains, ‘The increase in oropharynx cancer has come exclusively from an increase in HPV-positive cancers, which increased by 225. In parallel over the same period, the incidence of HPV-negative oropharynx cancer has declined by about 50%.’

 

Bankhead points out, ‘The emergence of HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer has been driven almost entirely by oral HPV infection, which has become incredibly common. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Evaluation Survey showed a 7% prevalence of oral HPV infection among US adults – one in 14. Oral HPV infection occurs two to five times more often in men than women…Current prevalence estimates are 10.1% among men and 3.6% among women. Infection rates in both sexes are driven predominantly by sexual activity, accounting for more than 80% of cases in women and almost 90% in men. The risk of infection increases with the number of sex partners in both men and women and with smoking, rising with the number of cigarettes smoked.’

 

Amber D’Souza, PhD, of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, admits, ‘It’s been hard to say which [sexual] behaviours transmit the infection. We know that it can be transmitted by oral sex. We know that performing oral sex on a woman increases the risk of acquiring HPV infection and that performing oral sex on a woman appears to have a higher risk of infection than performing oral sex on a man…It is a sexually transmitted infection. It is not casually transmitted.’ She adds that three-quarters of infected individuals clear the infection within two years. ‘Then there’s this subgroup of people who have persistent infection,’ she says. ‘We still think most of them will not develop HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer.’ As many as 85% of patients survive without recurrence or with effective treatment at recurrence. However, that leaves 15% who don’t do so well, and the reasons remain a mystery.

Categories: head and neck cancer, HPV, hpv infection, hpv positive, neck cancer, oral cavity, oral hpv, oral sex, Oropharyngeal Cancer, performing oral, positive oropharyngeal

How Oral Sex Can Cause Cancer In Men

When Michael Douglas announced that he had throat cancer, it came as something of a surprise that he thought there was only one culprit: oral sex. While it might seem at first that Michael Douglas was a delusional man, it become clear that what he saying was actually guided by genuine science. While he later stated that the cancer he had was tongue cancer rather than throat cancer, the point still stands that the evidence is now mounting up that giving oral sex leads to a number of different cancers in men.

There has been a huge spike in the number of head and neck cancers that have been linked to HPV over the past twenty years. It is beginning to raise alarm bells that we may need to worry about the risk of sexually transmitted infections and their potential ability to cause cancer in men. Indeed, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, between the years of 1988 and 2004, head, neck and throat cancers that tested positive for the human papilloma virus were seen to rise an astonishing 225 per cent. This is very worrying news indeed as it seems these levels of cancer are likely to continue to rise.

In fact the authors of the study go so far to argue that within the next decade the number of incidents of such cancers will overtake that of cervical cancer. It’s also true that the majority of those cases are going to be in men and will be caused by giving oral sex.  This is a point that is often missed in public talk about the HPV infection. And also remember that there is a vaccine that can prevent it.

There has been recent controversy over comments that were made by the presidential candidate Michele Bachmann about the HPV vaccine, the major aspect was squarely on young women and cervical cancer. But HPV, and specifically usually a strain called HPV-16, also causes oropharyngeal and anal cancer. This is a fact that is not often reported in the media because medical organizations, the government and academics do not want to get themselves locked into a debate about peoples sexual practices.

Until very recently, cancers of the head and neck were usually diagnosed in older people – in this instance, those with an average age of 60. Those types of cancer were usually caused by smoking or drinking too much alcohol. These types of exposures are likely to take around 20 years or more to cause the disease to occur. And, they typically didn’t test positive for HPV markers. In fact, the incident of HPV-negative head and neck cancers declined by more than 50 percent during the 16-year study period, mostly due to declines in smoking and other forms of tobacco use.

But it now seems that we are seeing the average age of head and neck cancer patients drop as increasingly younger people are beginning to develop HPV-caused cancers resulting from sexual exposure. Oral sex is thought to be one of the serious primary causes of this. Unfortunately one of the solid facts of the problem is that the best way to prevent the spread of HPV-caused cancer is to avoid the kind of practices that put you at risk. These are namely oral and anal sex – and to try to tell people that they can’t have sex in a certain kind of way would be an extremely unpopular move given how these are very mainstream forms of sexual contact. It will be interesting to see if further ideas are produced.

Categories: average age, cancer, cervical cancer, giving oral, HPV, hpv caused, michael douglas, neck cancers, oral sex, throat cancer

Warning: Having Oral Sex Could Give You Mouth Cancer

In a controversial television interview, actor Michael Douglas recently explained that his throat cancer had actually been caused by a sexual health problem.  He claimed that having oral sex with his wife had caused him to contract the human papillomavirus (HPV) which caused his head and neck cancer.

 

So, is oral sex always a threat to your wellness and wellbeing? Experts claim that this is simply not the case and that the reports that are around at the moment are causing people an unnecessary level of worry.

 

Some have proposed that a change in sexual behaviour should be advised due to the risks of contracting HPV, but experts say that these types of conclusions are premature. Whilst oral sex may be one risk factor for certain types of head and neck cancers, at this point the link is mainly speculative. In addition to this, there are many, many other elements that play a role in whether or not someone develops cancer, including how strong their immune system is, the experts say.

 

In general, if two people are in a monogamous relationship, there is really no need for them to restrict their sexual activities as long as they are both in good health.

 

Contrary to reports, cases of head and neck cancer are not on the increase. In fact, when studied as a group, cases of these types of cancer have actually declined in the United States of America during the last 25 years. On the other hand, there has been an increase in the number of head and neck cancer amongst younger people, and these cases are primarily caused by HPV.

 

HPV is generally sexually transmitted, and the virus causes nearly every case of cervical cancer. It can also cause anal cancer and genital warts.

Categories: cancer, caused, head, HPV, nbsp, Neck, neck cancer, oral, oral sex

New Blood Test Could Detect Sexually Transmitted Cancer

Hitting the headlines recently with claims about his sexual health, Hollywood actor Michael Douglas has claimed that his throat cancer was caused as a result of oral sex. The actor, who is married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, claims that his wellness was affected by a virus that he picked up by participating in oral sex.

This virus can be transmitted through kissing as well as oral sex, and now a new blood test could help to identify those at risk of this disease, many years before it actually occurs. Antibodies that indicate the risk of this disease have been shown to occur in the blood for many years before the disease affects your wellbeing, and this has been identified by a team of researchers from the World Health Organisation (WHO). These findings could help to identify those who may be at risk of contracting the various forms of the disease.

Researchers presented their findings in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, where they claimed that their findings may lead to a screening programme for the human papillomavirus (HPV) which can lead to oral cancers.

Before this study was carried out, it was not known whether these antibodies were present in the blood before the cancer became detectable. Now that it is known that they are present, researchers believe that the findings are very encouraging, and could, ultimately, lead to better survival rates from this type of cancer.

It is believed that screening programmes could be set up based on these findings, leading to early detection of the disease and better opportunities to cure the disease before it spreads.

As well as the recent information relating to HPV and oral cancer, the virus is best known for causing cervical cancer as well as other cancers of the genitals.

Traditionally, people associate cancers of the head, neck and mouth as being associated with alcohol consumption and smoking, which is true, but it does not explain the way that these types of the disease are spreading rapidly throughout Europe, South Africa and North America. This is thought to be due to the prevalence of the HPV infection, possibly as a result of changing attitudes towards oral sex.

Categories: cancer, HPV, oral

Can Oral Sex Cause Cancer? Hollywood Actor Believes So

You may think that oral sex is a healthy part of your sexual health and wellness, but could it actually be putting your wellbeing at risk of cancer? In a recent interview with The Guardian, the actor Michael Douglas discussed his recent throat cancer treatment, and revealed that he blamed oral sex for his condition.

Even though Douglas has spent many years engaging in heavy drinking and smoking, when asked if these were the causes of his throat cancer, he replied ‘No, because without wanting to get too specific this particular cancer is caused by HPV, which actually comes about from cunnilingus.’ Since then, Douglas has updated his comments, asserting that he didn’t think oral sex had caused his throat cancer specifically, but rather he was trying to explain some of the causes of oral cancer in general. Yet the question remains; could oral sex lead to cancer?

Of the 100 types of the human papilloma virus (HPV), 40 can affect the genital area. HPV affects your skin and the moist membranes lining your body, for example, in your cervix, anus, mouth and throat. As a result, it is easily spread by sexual activity, and as many as half of us will be infected at some time in their life. Your immune system tends to get rid of the infection in most cases, but sometimes the infection wins out, and causes health problems. High-risk types of the virus can cause abnormal tissue growth and trigger the onset of cancer.

HPV infection has been linked to cervical cancer, vaginal cancer, vulval cancer, anal cancer, cancer of the penis and some cancers of the head and neck, as well as verrucas, skin warts and genital warts. While condom use can reduce your risk of HPV infection, as condoms do not cover the entire genital area and are often put on after sexual contact has begun, they do not always guarantee protection against the spread of HPV. Given the available evidence, it is impossible to say whether or not oral sex caused Michael Douglas’s cancer. However, based on the risk factors for these types of cancer, his years of smoking and drinking could well have played a significant part, as these are the two biggest risk factors for the

Categories: cancer, HPV, oral sex