This will be a short diary and totally out of character for me. Usually I wouldn’t touch on this subject with a ten foot pole, but in the interest of saving the lives of fellow Kossaks, I thought you should be informed. Forwarned is forarmed.
A short poll at the end.
Experts have attributed the rise of head and neck cancer to the rise in the popularity of oral sex. That's because the human papillomavirus (HPV) is a major trigger for these cancers, and HPV can be transmitted through this type of sexual activity.
update:
This turned into a much more interesting, informative and frightening conversation than I ever could have imagined when I posted it. I encourage you to read the comments as there is so much more information in them than I ever could have included in this diary. More below:
Thank you to all the brilliant readers that added much information. I think this shows that it is important for us to have these conversations, and I worry that we are not having enough with young adults. If anything this shows the serious need for better sex education.
For some of those that did not feel included in the poll, I cannot add to the poll (I tried) so here are two mental responses you can check off: DADT Sex, what's that? I give myself a mental check to this one.
"It seems like a pretty good link that more sexual activity, particularly oral sex, is associated with increased HPV infection," said Dr. Greg Hartig, professor of otolaryngology - head and neck surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/...
Although head and neck cancers are going down due to less smoking, it appears that the ones who test positive in the last decade for HPV are more likely to get such cancers. 60-70% of such cancer have been from people who tested positive to HPV.
In the study, having six or more oral sex partners over a lifetime was associated with a 3.4 times higher risk for oropharyngeal cancer - cancers of the base of the tongue, back of the throat or tonsils. Having 26 or more vaginal-sex partners tripled the risk.
And the association increased as the number of partners - in either category - increased.
The researchers also reported that cancers of the tonsil and base of the tongue have been increasing every year since 1973, and wrote that "widespread oral sex practices among adolescents may be a contributing factor in this increase."
The researchers concluded that in their study, oral sex was "strongly associated" with oropharyngeal cancer, but noted that they could not "rule out transmission through direct mouth-to-mouth contact" such as French kissing.
A 2010 Swedish study positively linked head and neck cancer to HPV.
HPV tends to be site specific, explained Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, an adjunct instructor in the division of infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. In other words, it tends to stay wherever it first enters the body, be it the vagina (which in some cases could lead to cervical cancer), or the mouth and throat.
"The general consensus on the street is that because people's (sexual) practices have changed over time, we're seeing an increase in these cancers," said Hartig. "I don't know why they're having more oral sex (but) the concept of having oral sex is something that seems less obscure to you than it did to your parents or grandparents."
It would be thought that baby boomer would be the ones to see the increase because of their attitudes towards sexual freedom, but it turns out it is more true for those younger, according to Dr. Bert W. O'Malley, Jr., chair of otorhinolaryngology - head and neck surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, in 2002, some 90 percent of males and 88 percent of females aged 25 to 44 reported ever having oral sex with a partner of the opposite sex.
Comparable figures from 1992 showed that about three-quarters of men aged 20 to 39 and closer to 70 percent of women aged 18 to 59 having ever given or received oral sex.
The silver lining is that the HPV-related head and neck cancers are eminently more treatable than those attributable to smoking or drinking, even though they tend to be diagnosed at a later stage.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/...