Conant Foundation

Source:  The Body

The current study provides information on the prior and current sexual practices — including oral sex, vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, and masturbation — of a population of U.S. college students. “Less is known about the sexual health of young adults than about adolescents, despite 20- to 24-year-olds’ greater risk of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmissible infections,” the authors wrote.

The researchers examined data from a cross-sectional sexuality survey of students at two U.S. universities: one in the Midwest and one in the Southwest. The sample consisted of 1,504 non-Hispanic, white, never-married students who identified as heterosexual.

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Source:  Medpage Today

Women preferred by a large margin to test for sexually transmitted infections at home, rather than at a clinic, researchers found.

And those who chose a home test in a cohort study were twice as likely to complete the test as those who said they’d prefer to go to a free clinic or their healthcare provider, according to Jeffrey Peipert, MD, PhD, of Washington University in St. Louis, and colleague

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Source: Aidsmap

HIV can damage the walls of cells in the mucous membranes in the genital tract and the intestines, permitting the virus to pass across these barriers and infect vulnerable cells below, even when the tissue is undamaged, Canadian researchers report this week in the journal PLoS Pathogens.

The findings suggest that microbicides and vaccines may have the greatest chance of success if they can limit or prevent completely contacts between HIV’s gp120 surface protein and cells in the mucous membranes of the genital tract and the intestines.

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