THURSDAY, July 3 (HealthDay News) — Frequent sexual intercourse may cut down on a man’s chances of developing erectile dysfunction, Finnish researchers report.

“This is the same as any other part of the body. It’s what we in vascular surgery refer to as the ‘use it or lose it’ concept,” said Dr. Hossein Sadeghi-Nejad, an associate professor of urology at UMDNJ New Jersey Medical School Hackensack University Medical Center. “Sexual activity will promote maintenance of normal erectile function down the line.”

The report was published in the July issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

In the study, led by Dr. Juha Koskimaki, from Tampere University Hospital’s Department of Urology, researchers collected data on 989 Finnish men aged 55 to 75 years old.

The researchers found that men who said they had sexual intercourse less than once a week had twice the risk of developing erectile dysfunction, compared with men reporting having sexual intercourse once a week.

Among men who had sexual intercourse less than once a week, there were 79 cases of erectile dysfunction per 1,000 men. That number dropped to 32 cases per 1,000 among men who said they had sexual intercourse once a week, and it dropped even further, to 16 per 1,000, among men who said they had sexual intercourse three or more times a week, the researchers reported.

The frequency of morning erections was not associated with the incidence of moderate erectile dysfunction, the researchers noted.

However, the development of complete erectile dysfunction could be predicted from the frequency of morning erections. Among men with less than one morning erection a week, the risk of developing erectile dysfunction was 2.5-fold greater than among men who had two to three morning erections per week.

“Regular intercourse has an important role in preserving erectile function among elderly men, whereas morning erection does not exert a similar effect,” Koskimaki said in a statement. “Continued sexual activity decreases the incidence of erectile dysfunction in direct proportion to coital frequency.”

Sadeghi-Nejad said there is a scientific basis for this finding, and it also has implications for rehabilitation of patients after prostate cancer treatment.

“What is very hot these days is what we can do to rehabilitate people who develop erection problems after prostate cancer surgery or radiation therapy,” Sadeghi-Nejad said. “Anything you can do to increase oxygenation in the penis will help get patients back to normal.”

If one can naturally engage in behaviors that increase blood flow to the penis, it will have a positive effect in preventing erectile dysfunction, Sadeghi-Nejad said.

Sadeghi-Nejad noted that the study only addressed intercourse, and not masturbation. “This is essentially the same concept,” Sadeghi-Nejad said. “Anything you can do to bring blood to the penis is beneficial,” he added.

More information
For more about sexual dysfunction, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

LUBBOCK, Texas - A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra — but don’t necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks going all night long.

Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body’s blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation’s top producers of the seedless variety.

Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body’s enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.

“Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it,” said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. “Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it’s a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects.”

Todd Wehner, who studies watermelon breeding at North Carolina State University, said anyone taking Viagra shouldn’t expect the same result from watermelon.

“It sounds like it would be an effect that would be interesting but not a substitute for any medical treatment,” Wehner said.

The nitric oxide can also help with angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, according to the study, which was paid for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

More citrulline — about 60 percent — is found in watermelon rind than in the flesh, Patil said, but that can vary. But scientists may be able to find ways to boost the concentrations in the flesh, he said.

Citrulline is found in all colors of watermelon and is highest in the yellow-fleshed types, said Penelope Perkins-Veazie, a USDA researcher in Lane, Okla.

She said Patil’s research is valid, but with a caveat: One would need to eat about six cups of watermelon to get enough citrulline to boost the body’s arginine level.

“The problem you have when you eat a lot of watermelon is you tend to run to the bathroom more,” Perkins-Veazie said.

Watermelon is a diuretic and was a homeopathic treatment for kidney patients before dialysis became widespread.

Another issue is the amount of sugar that much watermelon would spill into the bloodstream — a jolt that could cause cramping, Perkins-Veazie said.

Patil said he would like to do future studies on how to reduce the sugar content in watermelon.

The relationship between citrulline and arginine might also prove helpful to those who are obese or suffer from type-2 diabetes. The beneficial effects — among them the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does — are beginning to be revealed in research.

Citrulline is present in other cur cubits, like cucumbers and cantaloupe, at very low levels, and in the milk protein casein. The highest concentrations of citrulline are found in walnut seedlings, Perkins-Veazie said.

“But they’re bitter and most people don’t want to eat them,” she said.

THURSDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) — Due to problems with false-positive results, the use of an oral rapid HIV test was recently halted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which operates 10 sexually transmitted disease walk-in clinics.

In January 2004, the clinics introduced on-site, rapid HIV testing of finger-stick, whole-blood specimens using the OraQuick test. Then, in March 2005, the clinics replaced the finger-stick test with an oral fluid test, the OraQuick Advance Rapid HIV-1/2 Antibody Test.

However, beginning in late 2005, the clinics noted an unexpected increase in false-positive oral test results. This increase subsided after several months, notes a report released online June 18 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The use of oral fluid tests was suspended for three weeks in December 2005 and replaced with the finger-stick test while city health officials investigated the increase in false-positive test results. The finger-stick tests didn’t produce any false-positive results.

The oral fluid test was re-introduced in late December 2005. However, any positive result from an oral fluid test had to be followed up with a finger-stick test.

In late 2007, there was another larger increase in the incidence of false-positive oral fluid tests. The cause has not been determined and the city health department has stopped the use of the oral fluid test. Only the finger-stick test is being used.

“These findings underscore the importance of confirming all reactive HIV tests, both from oral fluid and whole-blood specimens,” the report authors wrote.

“In addition, the results suggest that the NYC DOHMH strategy of following up reactive oral fluid test results with an immediate finger-stick whole-blood test reduced the number of apparent false-positive oral fluid test results and might be a useful strategy in other settings and locations,” they added.

More information:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about HIV testing.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Sexual Awareness for Everyone, or the SAFE, program has shown promise in curbing recurrent bouts of common sexually transmitted diseases among high-risk teenage girls, researchers report.

They found that a group of 14- to 18-year-old Mexican-American and African-American girls who participated in the SAFE program were less apt to engage in risky sexual behavior and had a statistically lower incidence of recurrent gonorrhea and Chlamydia infection in the first 6 months and over time, compared with teenage girls in a control group.

The SAFE program also curbed STD reinfection rates and risky sexual behavior among adult women ages 19 and older in the study.

“Although not specifically designed for teens, the SAFE intervention worked very well in this high-risk population,” Dr. Andrea Ries Thurman from University of Texas Health Sciences Center San Antonio and colleagues report in the current issue of the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.]

As part of the SAFE program, teen girls attended small-group meetings on STD prevention. Sessions included role-playing, interactive video, handouts, and group discussion to emphasize a number of preventive strategies such as periodic abstinence, mutual monogamy, correct and consistent use of condoms, the importance of taking prescribed STD medication as directed and avoiding sexual intercourse until finishing the medication, not douching, and seeing their doctor whenever they suspect an STD infection.

The overall goals of the SAFE program are to have participants recognize their risk for contracting STDs including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, commit to changing their risky behavior and acquire the skills needed to be successful, Thurman’s team explains.

The results showed that the cumulative reinfection rate (0-12 months) was roughly 24 percent among teens in the SAFE program compared with 40 percent among teens in the control group who received only 15 minutes of individual STD risk reduction counseling. None of the study teens became infected with HIV during the study.

The cumulative reinfection rate was 12 percent among women ages 19 or older in the SAFE program compared with 18 percent among their counterparts in the control group.

Teenagers as a group had higher rates of STD reinfection (33.1 percent) than adults (14.4 percent), the investigators found, “because the behavior that was most highly and consistently associated with recurrent infection in teens - unprotected sex with untreated partners - was not sufficiently modified by the SAFE intervention.”

Thurman and colleagues conclude that STD prevention interventions for teenagers need to “emphasize skills to help teens ensure their partners are treated or to otherwise refuse intercourse.”

SOURCE: Obstetrics and Gynecology, June 2008.

TUESDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) — Gene therapy may be a way to treat erectile dysfunction in men who do not respond to pills such as Viagra, researchers report.

Maxi-K gene therapy is a gene transfer that improves erectile dysfunction. Two studies using the gene were presented Tuesday at the American Urological Association’s annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla.

“Gene transfer technology has the potential for long-term improvement for erectile function,” lead researcher Dr. Arnold Melman, a professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said during a morning teleconference Tuesday.

“The market for erectile dysfunction is quite large,” Melman said. “And medications such as Viagra don’t work very well in 40 percent of men.”

Melman noted that a recent survey showed that 50 percent of urologists would consider switching their patients from their current medications to gene transfer treatment. “So, we think this will be well-accepted by physicians and patients,” he said.

Results of a phase I trial testing gene transfer in 11 men with erectile dysfunction who had failed other therapy showed that gene transfer was safe and also had restorative effects. Four different doses were tried during the trial. Men receiving the highest dose showed improvement for up to six months, Melman said.

“These men had normal sexual function for six months and then went back to the way they were,” Melman said. He added that two doses a year would be enough for most men to maintain their normal sexual function.

During two years of follow-up, none of the men reported any abnormalities after the gene transfer. The procedure was safe, and no adverse effects were seen, Melman said.

Based on these findings, Melman’s group is moving on to new trials and hopes to have a product on the market within two years.

In another trial, four monkeys were fed a high-fat diet, which reduced their sex drive. After the monkeys received a Maxi-K gene transfer, they became friskier.

In addition, the number of partial and full erections increased about fivefold, the researchers found. Also, the frequency of ejaculations increased among the monkeys that received the gene transfer. Moreover, the gene transfer affected how the monkeys behaved with female monkeys.

“The most fascinating thing is there was the increased socialization,” lead researcher George J. Christ, a professor of urology and head of the Program in Cell Tissue and Organ Physiology at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said during Tuesday’s teleconference. “After receiving a gene transfer and regaining sexual function, they felt better about themselves.”

MILAN (Reuters Health) - Women with lower urinary tract symptoms, or LUTS, are more likely to have sexual problems than women without LUTS, researchers reported here at the annual meeting of the European Association of Urology.

Dr. Con Kelleher, at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital Trusts in London, and colleagues examined the impact of LUTS on women’s sexual functioning using a database that contains records from 333 general practices.

The study included 1,377,000 women 18 years of age or older who had been seen at one of the practices from 2000 through 2006.

The rate of sexual dysfunction among women with LUTS was twice that of women with no LUTS, researchers found.

The data also showed that women between 30 and 60 years of age were significantly more likely to report sexual dysfunction than women outside this age range.

Overall, the occurrence of overactive bladder, incontinence, and voiding problems, as well as sexual difficulties, increased markedly during the study period.

“The data suggest that the relationship between sexual dysfunction and LUTS (including overactive bladder) should be considered in women when diagnosing and treating these conditions,” Kelleher said.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Syphilis is making a comeback in developed countries, spurred by illicit drug use and high-risk sexual behaviors, and many doctors are unprepared to recognize and treat it, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

They said syphilis has been on the rise since the beginning of the 21st century in high-income countries, but because the disease had been well controlled in the 1990s, doctors may not be screening for it.

“The key message here is that syphilis is again on the rise in several developing countries. In many of these countries we are seeing very high rates in men who have sex with men,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose study appears in the journal Lancet.

Fenton said the resurgence demands new training efforts among health-care professionals. “In many countries, physicians may have lost some of the skill sets associated with diagnosing syphilis,” Fenton said in a telephone interview.

The CDC last week said the U.S. syphilis rate rose once again in 2007, marking the seventh consecutive year of increases. Homosexual and bisexual men accounted for 64 percent of syphilis cases in 2007, up from about 5 percent in 1999.

Syphilis infects some 12 million people worldwide every year. Most cases are acquired through sexual contact with a syphilis sore. Pregnant women can pass it on to their babies.

The recent resurgence is among a sub-group of men who have sex with men and engage in high-risk sex with multiple partners.

If not addressed, Fenton said the disease could become far more widespread.

“We have seen with other epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases that even if the initial rise occurs in men who have sex with men, it is unlikely to stay in that group for any long periods of time,” Fenton said.

“The data suggest we are now seeing increases among heterosexuals in the U.S. and in Europe as well,” he said.

Fenton and colleagues argue that the resurgence calls for swift public health intervention, including screening programs to prevent the spread of the infection, mass media campaigns, efforts to change behavior in high-risk groups and distribution of condoms.

“Efforts must be made to incorporate and evaluate new diagnostics tools, social network approaches, innovative evidence-based prevention interventions, robust disease surveillance and systematic monitoring and evaluation of prevention, treatment and care activities,” they wrote.

Like many other sexually transmitted diseases, syphilis raises the likelihood of infection by or transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

Syphilis is caused by the bacterium Treponema palladium. It starts out as a sore, but progresses to a rash, fever, and eventually can cause blindness, paralysis and dementia.