Sexual Health News

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.

PARIS (AFP) - HIV infections among heterosexual Africans could be slashed by more than a third if safe-sex counselling was directed at married or cohabiting couples, a new study says.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Too many people may consider themselves at low risk of sexually transmitted diseases simply because they trust their partner, a new study suggests.

LONDON (AFP) - The number of girls under the age of 14 having an abortion jumped by over 20 percent in 2007, new figures from the Department of Health show, leading to calls for more government-backed sexual health counselling and contraception services.

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.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men with type 2 diabetes or the metabolic syndrome, or both, are prone to have low testosterone levels. If so, testosterone replacement therapy with a gel applied to the skin may improve their response to insulin and their sexual function, according to the results of a new clinical trial.

LONDON (AFP) - Female chimpanzees are hungry for sex with as many males as possible, and keep their mouths shut about it to boost their chances of luring the top chimps, a Scottish university has found.

SUNDAY, June 15 (HealthDay News) -- Erectile dysfunction could be an indicator of testosterone deficiency and the metabolic syndrome, a set of factors that may indicate an increased risk of heart and vascular disease and type 2 diabetes, a new international study shows.

BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AFP) - "I don't really know what it is for," says a salesman with some embarrassment, despite the explicit illustrations on the bottle of "Long Love Spray".

SATURDAY, June 14 (HealthDay News) -- More than half of all people will have a sexually transmitted disease or infection at some point in their life, the American Social Health Association reports.

NEW YORK - A court ordered the U.S. government on Wednesday to reconsider the asylum requests of three women who suffered genital mutilation in Guinea, saying it was "deeply disturbed" their claims were not taken more seriously.

HAVANA - Cuba has authorized sex-change operations and will offer them free for qualifying citizens, an official said Friday. The move is the latest in a series of changes implemented by President Raul Castro since he succeeded his elder brother, Fidel, in February. Raul Castro's daughter, Mariela, heads Cuba's National Center for Sex Education, which strongly backs the new policy.

WOBURN, Mass. - A British man despondent over his sex life and his mounting debt shot his wife and baby daughter to death as they lay in bed together, covered them with a comforter, then bought a one-way ticket home to England, a prosecutor told a jury Friday.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba, in the latest change since President Raul Castro took office in February, has allowed doctors to perform sex change operations, a specialist at the National Center for Sex Education said on Friday.

OSLO (AFP) - Norwegian police accused a Gambian couple on Friday of subjecting five daughters to genital mutilation in the country's first-ever case against the illegal act of female circumcision.

OSLO (Reuters) - Police in Norway have arrested a Gambian-born man and charged him and his wife with subjecting five of their six daughters to genital mutilation, officials said on Friday.