There is already evidence to suggest that soy beans contain natural chemicals that mimic the effect of female sex hormones.

Soy contains genistein, known to interact with the ‘receptor’ molecules on cells designed to respond to oestrogens.

A new study by Ren-Shan Ge of the Wenzhou Medical College in China found that genistein could interfere with the production of vital enzymes involved in producing sperm.

“Following ingestion, soy isoflavones are known to reach the reproductive organs. Thus, excessive exposure to agents that exhibit oestrogenic activity may affect male reproductive tract developments and functions,” the Independent quoted the researchers as saying.

“With regard to this concern, it has been estimated the genistein and daidzein can reach high concentrations in infants who consume large amounts of soy-based products,” they added.

The concentrations of genistein used in the study are roughly equivalent to the levels that can build up in the human body following a diet rich in soy products.

However, Professor Ieuan Hughes of the University of Cambridge said that a comprehensive inquiry into the oestrogenic chemicals found in soy and other food has failed to find any adverse effects on male reproductive health.

“I suspect the genistein effect is of little relevance to male human health… there was no evidence that soy products had adverse effects on male reproductive health, either via testis function or any other mechanism such as androgen [male hormone] action,” he said.

The study has been published in the Asian Journal of Andrology.

Results of a study published online ahead of print in the journal Diabetes Care, conducted by University at Buffalo endocrinologists, showed that 40 percent of obese participants involved in the Hypogonadism in Males (HIM) study had lower-than-normal testosterone readings.

The percentage rose to 50 percent among obese men with diabetes. Results also revealed that as body mass index (BMI) — a relationship of weight–to-height — increased, testosterone levels fell.

“The effect of diabetes on lowering testosterone levels was similar to that of a weight gain of approximately 20 pounds,” says Sandeep Dhindsa, MD, an endocrinology specialist in the UB Department of Medicine and first author on the study.

“In view of the fact that almost one-third of the U.S. is obese, these observations have profound pathophysiological, clinical, epidemiological and public health implications.”

This is the largest analysis of the association between obesity and low testosterone, and the first to compare prevalence of low testosterone with obesity and diabetes separately and together. The study shows that obesity and diabetes may exert independent influences on testosterone concentrations.

“We published a report in 2004 on the high prevalence of low testosterone levels in men with type 2 diabetes, and multiple studies all over the world have confirmed the association of low testosterone with diabetes,” Dhindsa notes.

“The Endocrine Society now recommends that all men with type 2 diabetes should have their testosterone levels measured. Our new study shows that obese men also have a very high prevalence of low testosterone levels, so physicians should consider screening obese non-diabetic men, as well, for low testosterone.”

The HIM study was funded by Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc., and was conducted from November 2003 to February 2004 in 95 primary care practices throughout the U.S. The study involved 2,165 men 45 years or older who provided blood samples for analysis of testosterone concentrations.

UB researchers excluded participants from the full study who had no BMI data or were on certain drugs that can affect testosterone levels, providing a study population of 1,849 men — 398 with diabetes and 1,451 non-diabetics.

“With the rising prevalence of obesity in the U.S. and the rest of the world,” says Paresh Dandona, MD, head of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at UB and Kaleida Health, and senior author of the study, “it is imperative that the prevalence of low testosterone levels in obese men be defined. In addition, the magnitude of the contribution of obesity to subnormal testosterone needs to be quantified.

“We hypothesized that obese men are more likely to have low testosterone than non-obese men, and that we would find more low testosterone levels in men with diabetes than in men without diabetes, both obese and non-obese.”

Results confirmed these hypotheses, showing a 40 percent higher prevalence of low testosterone in obese men compared to the non-obese participants. Men with diabetes, whether obese or not, showed lower levels of testosterone than non-diabetic men across all weight categories. Testosterone levels decreased significantly in both diabetic and non-diabetic men as BMI increased.

“In view of the increasing prevalence of obesity, even in younger populations, it would be important to conduct a similar study in the men at the prime of their reproductive years,” he says.

UB endocrinologists published a study in Diabetes Care in 2008 showing that more than 50 percent of men between 18 and 35 years old with type 2 diabetes had lower than normal testosterone levels.

“In view of the high rates of subnormal testosterone in patients with obesity or diabetes,

testosterone concentrations should be measured regularly in these populations, especially when these conditions occur together,” says Dandona.

Contributors to this study from UB, in addition to Dhindsa and Dandona, are Donald E. Mager, PharmD, PhD, Husam Ghanim, PhD, and Ajay Chaudhuri, MD. Cecilia L. McWhirter and Michael G. Miller, PharmD, both from Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc., also contributed to the study.

This was an unfunded analysis of HIM data. Dandona and Dhindsa are supported by grants from The American Diabetes Association and Dandona’s work also is supported by the NIH.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, a flagship institution in the State University of New York system and its largest and most comprehensive campus. UB’s more than 28,000 students pursue their academic interests through more than 300 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs. Founded in 1846, the University at Buffalo is a member of the Association of American Universities.

Source: Lois Baker, University at Buffalo via EurekAlert

The drug, minocycline, likely will improve on the current treatment regimens of HIV-infected patients if used in combination with a standard drug cocktail known as HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy), according to research published now online and appearing in print April 15 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. “The powerful advantage to using minocycline is that the virus appears less able to develop drug resistance because minocycline targets cellular pathways not viral proteins,” says Janice Clements, Ph.D., Mary Wallace Stanton Professor of Faculty Affairs, vice dean for faculty, and professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

“The big challenge clinicians deal with now in this country when treating HIV patients is keeping the virus locked in a dormant state,” Clements adds. “While HAART is really effective in keeping down active replication, minocycline is another arm of defense against the virus.”

Unlike the drugs used in HAART which target the virus, minocycline homes in on, and adjusts T cells, major immune system agents and targets of HIV infection. According to Clements, minocycline reduces the ability of T cells to activate and proliferate, both steps crucial to HIV production and progression toward full blown AIDS.

If taken daily for life, HAART usually can protect people from becoming ill, but it’s not a cure. The HIV virus is kept at a low level but isn’t ever entirely purged; it stays quietly hidden in some immune cells. If a person stops HAART or misses a dose, the virus can reactivate out of those immune cells and begin to spread.

The idea for using minocycline as an adjunct to HAART resulted when the Hopkins team learned of research by others on rheumatoid arthritis patients showing the anti-inflammatory effects of minocycline on T cells. The Hopkins group connected the dots between that study with previous research of their own showing that minocycline treatment had multiple beneficial effects in monkeys infected with SIV, the primate version of HIV. In monkeys treated with minocycline, the virus load in the cerebrospinal fluid, the viral RNA in the brain and the severity of central nervous system disease were significantly decreased. The drug was also shown to affect T cell activation and proliferation.

“Since minocycline reduced T cell activation, you might think it would have impaired the immune systems in the macaques, which are very similar to humans, but we didn’t see any deleterious effect,” says Gregory Szeto, a graduate student in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine working in the Retrovirus Laboratory at Hopkins.
“This drug strikes a good balance and is ideal for HIV because it targets very specific aspects of immune activation.”

The success with the animal model prompted the team to study in test tubes whether minocycline treatment affected latency in human T cells infected with HIV. Using cells from HIV-infected humans on HAART, the team isolated the “resting” immune cells and treated half of them with minocycline. Then they counted how many virus particles were reactivated, finding completely undetectable levels in the treated cells versus detectable levels in the untreated cells.

“Minocycline reduces the capability of the virus to emerge from resting infected T cells,” Szeto explains. “It prevents the virus from escaping in the one in a million cells in which it lays dormant in a person on HAART, and since it prevents virus activation it should maintain the level of viral latency or even lower it. That’s the goal: Sustaining a latent non-infectious state.”

The team used molecular markers to discover that minocycline very selectively interrupts certain specific signaling pathways critical for T cell activation. However, the antibiotic doesn’t completely obliterate T cells or diminish their ability to respond to other infections or diseases, which is crucial for individuals with HIV.

“HIV requires T cell activation for efficient replication and reactivation of latent virus,” Clement says, “so our new understanding about minocyline’s effects on a T cell could help us to find even more drugs that target its signaling pathways.”

The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Authors of the paper, in addition to Clements and Szeto, are Angela K. Brice, Sheila A. Barber and Robert F. Siliciano, all of Johns Hopkins. Also, Hung-Chih Yang of National Taiwan University Hospital.

Source: Maryalice Yakutchik, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

Use a condom every time you have sexual intercourse, oral sex, or anal sex unless you know that you and your partners are STD-free.

Condoms are most effective when you follow these steps before using them:

• Buy latex condoms sold in the United States. These condoms meet strict safety standards and are unlikely to break or leak.
• Keep the condom in its package until you are ready to use it.
• Check the condom for its expiration date. Throw away condoms that have passed the expiration date.
• Avoid storing rubber (latex) condoms in any hot place (such as the glove compartment of a car). Heat can weaken the rubber and increase the chance that the condom will break.

Follow these steps to use a condom properly.

• Unwrap the condom carefully to avoid poking tiny holes in it with your fingernails.
• Put the condom on as soon as your penis is hard (erect), before you enter your partner. The condom can be put on as part of lovemaking.
• Pull down the loose skin from the head of the penis, if you have not been circumcised.
• Hold the tip of the condom and squeeze out the air. This leaves room for the semen when you ejaculate. Also, the condom is less likely to break if all the air has been squeezed out.
• Keep holding the tip of the condom. Unroll it onto the erect penis, all the way down to the pubic hair.
• Use a lubricant on the outside of the condom once it is on completely. Use lubricants like Astroglide, Slippery Stuff, or K-Y Jelly, which do not contain oil. Never use Vaseline, grease, hand lotion, baby oil, or anything else with oil in it. Oil can weaken latex rubber and cause the condom to break and may irritate your partner’s vagina. Read the label to be sure that a lubricant does not have oil in it.
• Press on the bottom of the condom (by the pubic hair) after you ejaculate and pull out while your penis is still hard. This will keep semen from spilling out of the condom.
• Take the condom off and throw it away. Use a new condom each time you have sexual intercourse, oral sex, or anal sex.
• Wash your hands after handling a used condom.

Source: Healthwise

A new device that looks a lot like those home ovulation and home pregnancy tests but checks sperm count will soon be available in Europe, and is undergoing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) review for marketing in the US.

The test targets couples who have been trying to get pregnant for a few months, but aren’t ready to seek professional help, Dr. John C. Herr of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who helped develop the new test, told Reuters Health.

The test helps couples sort out if the male is a factor in the infertility “and to do that in privacy with some cost savings,” he said. “The product will retail for about $25. That’s a lot cheaper than going in and having a full semen analysis.”

Depending on where you are in the country, he added, semen analysis can cost from around $65 to $250, and may or may not be covered by insurance.

In the journal Human Reproduction, Herr and his team report on a study comparing the accuracy of their SpermCheck Fertility test with standard laboratory sperm count methods, using 225 semen samples. The tests were accurate 96 percent of the time, the researchers found. Ninety-five percent of the time a laboratory professional and a lay person got the same result when reading a single test independently.

Sperm counts of 20 million per milliliter of semen and above are considered normal. The test will tell a man whether or not his sperm count meets this cutoff, and if it doesn’t whether he has a severely low sperm count (below 5 million sperm per milliliter). “It basically tells the man how deep the infertility is,” Herr explains. “If both strips are negative it’s important that they then seek medical treatment for the infertility.”

The test works by detecting an antigen found on the surface of the head of a sperm cell known as SP-10, which Herr and his colleagues discovered. “There’s a lot of cell biology and molecular biology behind the project,” the researcher said, adding that the work of discovering SP-10 and developing the test – much of it funded by the National Institutes of Health – took about 10 years.

While women only need to dip a test stick in their urine to see if they’re pregnant or close to ovulation, the SpermCheck Fertility test requires a few more steps.

Users let the semen rest for 20 minutes, collect 100 microliters using a pipette, and mix the semen with a detergent-containing substance known as a buffer, which releases the SP-10 protein from the sperm. Users then put a few drops of this mix into the two sample wells. Within seven minutes, the test results will appear in test windows above the wells.

Source: Reuters Health.

In a new Anglo-German study, which compared 211 six-year-olds conceived through ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) with 195 naturally conceived children of the same age, doctors uncovered that boys conceived through IVF treatment involving a single sperm being directly injected into a female egg often inherit shorter fingers, a trait known to be associated with infertility.

ICSI bypasses the normal competition where only the healthiest sperm cell is able to reach the female egg and fertilise it.

Alastair Sutcliffe, a paediatrician at the Institute of Child Health in London, led the study, reports The Times.

The study has been published in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online.

“This is the first study of this kind on these children,” Sutcliffe said. “We don’t yet know the implication of the findings because the children are very young, but we need to inform people [about the possible risks of the ICSI procedure].”

“This [research] is telling us that we should only use ICSI when it is absolutely necessary,” said John Manning, an evolutionary biologist at Southampton University who has examined the link between finger length and fertility and who is one of the authors of the latest study.

“We know the extraordinary depression and pain that childlessness can cause and we have a responsibility to ensure that the focus on the wellbeing of the children born as a result of these techniques is as high as it can be.”

Source-ANI

The team of biophysicists and molecular biologists also broke through a previous barrier to this research by developing a method to record electrical activity of a single human sperm cell through a process called patch-clamping.

The new findings shed light on a number of previous conundrums, including how sperm cells that are quiescent in the male reproductive system get activated in the female reproductive tract and why marijuana and zinc affect sperm motility and male fertility, the researchers say.

The findings are featured as the cover story in the February 5, 2010 issue of the journal, “Cell” and are available online at http://www.cell.com.

The molecule in question, known as Hv1, operates as a pore in the outer membrane of the sperm cell that extrudes protons from the cell. Protons are positively charged particles in every atom that are also stable on their own in the form of the H+ hydrogen ion.

That extrusion process increases the pH of the internal cell environment, which makes it less acidic. Hv1 had previously been known to be primarily present in immune cells called phagocytes, but had not been seen in other cells, including spermatozoa, according to Yuriy Kirichok, PhD, an assistant professor in the UCSF Department of Physiology who led the research.

Hv1 also was known to be inhibited by zinc and had what Kirichok called a “fingerprint” of unique behavior in terms of the properties of the transmembrane proton current it generates.

“For the first time ever, we had an opportunity to study the electrical activity of the human sperm cell and measure its ionic conductance,” Kirichok said. “We realized there was a huge proton conductance at work. The activity looked just like Hv1 activity in phagocytes.”

Hv1 also was a logical option because it is known to be activated by a rise in external pH and to be inhibited by extracellular zinc. The highest concentration of zinc in humans is found in the male reproductive tract, Kirichok said, which would inhibit an Hv1 channel and keep the spermatozoa in their quiescent state. The female reproductive tract is both more alkaline and distinctly lower in zinc levels.

By combining the skills and knowledge of biophysics, molecular biology, traditional pharmacology and biochemistry, the team was first able to record the proton current flowing across the sperm plasma membrane, then conduct a series of experiments to see whether it responded to the same external stimuli as Hv1: activation by membrane voltage, a rise in external pH and fatty acids, and inhibition by extracellular zinc.

When the results of those experiments mimicked Hv1, the UCSF team used a fluorescent antibody that is known to bind specifically with Hv1, and a test for the Hv1 messenger RNA that serves as a template for the gene that produces Hv1 to confirm presence of Hv1 in human sperm cells.

Each of those produced positive results and revealed an extremely high concentration of Hv1 in the flagellum of the human sperm cell.

Scientists have known for decades that sperm cells needed to become less acidic – or more alkaline – internally in order to be activated in the female reproductive tract and become able to fertilize the egg, but until now, they have not understood what caused the internal pH in sperm to rise, or alkalinize, due to an inability to measure proton currents across the human sperm membrane.

“The concentration of protons is extremely high at all times while the sperm are in the male reproductive tract, which makes the intracellular sperm environment acidic and inhibits the activity of the sperm cell,” Kirichok said. “The way to activate the sperm cell is to enable the protons to leave the cell. Hv1 is what enables them to do that.”

Kirichok explained that human spermatozoa are completely still in the male reproductive system, which is an acidic environment, and that an as-yet-unidentified proton pump keeps the proton levels even higher inside the cell. This makes the internal environment, with a pH of 6.0, more than 1,000 times more acidic than the female reproductive tract, which has a pH of 7.4.

“We know the Hv1 channel, when opened, can allow protons to exit, and activates a cascade of biochemical reactions that cause the spermatozoa to move, mature and prepare to fertilize the egg,” he said. “In order to activate sperm cells, this ion channel must be activated.”

Hv1 also is activated by endocannabinoid anandamide – a substance released by neurons and also the egg membrane. Kirichok said this could explain the confusing results that have been found in exposing sperm to cannabinoids, such as those contained in marijuana.

Marijuana use has long been associated with male infertility, but some studies have shown increased sperm activity in this exposure. Kirichok proposed that marijuana may mimic the endocannabinoid anandamide that is released by an egg cell, activating the Hv1 proton channel and causing the sperms to mobilize and burn out prematurely, while still in the male reproductive tract.

Source: Kristen Bole, University of California – San Francisco

Results show that erectile dysfunction was 16 percent more likely in men with RLS symptoms that occur five to 14 times per month (odds ratio of 1.16) and 78 percent more likely in men whose RLS symptoms occur 15 or more times a month (OR=1.78). The associations were independent of age, body mass index, use of antidepressants, anxiety and other possible risk factors for RLS. Fifty-three percent of RLS patients and 40 percent of participants without RLS reported having erectile dysfunction, which was defined as a poor or very poor ability to have and maintain an erection sufficient for intercourse.

The results suggest it is likely that the two disorders share common mechanisms, said lead author Xiang Gao, MD, PhD, instructor at Harvard Medical School, associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and research scientist at the Harvard School of public health in Boston, Mass.

“The mechanisms underlying the association between RLS and erectile dysfunction could be caused by hypofunctioning of dopamine in the central nervous system, which is associated with both conditions,” said Gao.

Data were collected from 23,119 men who participated in the Health Professionals Follow-up study, a large ongoing U.S. cohort of male dentists, optometrists, osteopaths, podiatrists, pharmacists and veterinarians. Participants were between the ages of 56 and 91 years, with a mean age of 69 years. To reduce possible misclassification of RLS, participants with diabetes and arthritis were excluded.

Participants were questioned in 2002 about RLS diagnosis and severity based on the International RLS study group criteria. RLS was defined as having unpleasant leg sensations combined with restlessness and an urge to move; with symptoms appearing only at rest, improving with movement, worsening in the evening or at night compared with the morning, and occurring five or more times per month.

About four percent of participants had RLS (944 of 23,119 men), and about 41 percent (9,433 men) had erectile dysfunction. Men with RLS were older and were more likely to be Caucasian. The prevalence of erectile dysfunction also increased with age.

The authors noted that the association between RLS and erectile dysfunction also could be related in part to other sleep disorders that co-occur with RLS. For example, obstructive sleep apnea and sleep deprivation may decrease circulating testosterone levels.

They also pointed out that the cross-sectional design of the study did not allow for a determination of causality. Further epidemiological studies are needed to clarify the relationship between the RLS and erectile dysfunction and to explore the biological mechanisms underlying the association.

Source: Kelly Wagner, American Academy of Sleep Medicine

As a major organization of pediatricians considers revising its recommendations on circumcision of newborn boys, two new reviews of existing research offer conflicting conclusions about the bitterly debated procedure.

One review, from Australia, says there’s no evidence that infant circumcision will reduce the risk of sexually transmitted disease later in life, and it warns of significant psychological harm. But another from the United States gives more weight to findings from Africa that show the procedure, when it’s performed on adult men, makes a major difference in preventing such diseases as AIDS.

The findings come as the American Academy of Pediatrics debates updating its recommendations regarding circumcision among newborns. The academy now takes a neutral stance.

In general, “there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the risks and benefits of circumcision,” said Dr. Douglas S. Diekema, a pediatrician at the University of Washington who’s familiar with both reviews and serves on a task force working on the academy’s recommendations.

“There are some clear benefits to circumcision,” he said. “There are some risks to circumcision, although the significant ones appear to be rare.”

Not so, write the Australian researchers, who examined eight studies for a review in the latest issue of the Annals of Family Medicine. Two studies involved neonatal circumcision, and six involved older males, roughly 14 to 49 years old.

The review’s lead author, researcher Caryn Perera of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, said the risk of major complications ranges from 2 percent to 10 percent. “These may be considered unacceptable for an elective procedure,” she said.

Parents who think circumcision has medical benefits should be aware that there’s “a lack of consensus and robust evidence” on that, she added.

Though African studies have linked circumcision in adult men to lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases, including the virus that causes AIDS, Perera said that only future studies will tell if those findings are applicable to the Western world, where AIDS is much less prevalent.

And there’s more to consider, Perera said. She said that circumcision poses problems from a mental point of view, potentially causing “significant anger or feeling incomplete, hurt, frustrated, abnormal or violated.”

As to whether circumcision reduces sexual sensitivity, Perera said there’s no evidence that it affects sensation when performed on adults. The highest-quality studies, known as randomized controlled trials, don’t report whether infant circumcision affects sensation, she said.

A review in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & and Adolescent Medicine, which examined three studies, took a different tack. It says that risks of complications from circumcision are less than 1 percent, and “serious long-term complications are extremely rare.”

Dr. Matthew Golden, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington Center for AIDS and STD, said the ideal study would randomly assign thousands of infants to either get circumcised or not get circumcised and then follow them for decades. But “that trial is never getting done, nor should it be done,” Golden said.

For now, he said, when it comes to circumcision, “we know it’s pretty safe, and we have a lot of evidence for some benefit.”

Source: The American Academy of Pediatrics

Men worried that taking Viagra will lead to sexually risky behavior can relax: A new study suggests that drugs for erectile dysfunction don’t make men more likely to engage in potentially unhealthy sex.

“For this study we took the perspective of a doctor who may worry that prescribing erectile-dysfunction drugs to patients could contribute to the spread of HIV. The findings from this study should provide some reassurance to health-care providers that erectile-dysfunction drugs appear to be prescribed responsibly and used responsibly,” Dr. Robert Cook, an associate professor at the University of Florida and lead researcher of the new study, said in a news release.

Cook noted that this study is unique because, unlike previous studies, it didn’t focus on men who obtained the medication without a prescription, had sex with men or had substance abuse problems.

“In this study we looked at erectile-dysfunction drugs and sexual behavior in the context of routine health care for a group of men who are more representative of the general population,” Cook said.

By the study’s definition, risky sexual behavior is unprotected sex with someone whose HIV status is opposite — positive if you’re negative or the reverse — or not known.

The researchers examined data from 2,787 men, average age 52, who were taking part in a study about aging veterans. About half were HIV-positive.

According to the study findings, 28 percent of the men used erectile-dysfunction drugs over a one-year period. About 10 percent of the men in two groups — those who did use the drugs and those who didn’t — reported behavior defined as sexually risky.

The study is published in the February issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.