Return of STD blamed on gay men
Syphilis, the sexual scourge of 19th-century bohemians, is on the rise across Europe, with experts blaming high-risk sex among gay men. A bacterial disease whose symptoms include ulcers, sores and rashes, syphilis was all but wiped out in the west thanks to the widespread use of penicillin in the 1950s. Infection rates were so low by 2000 that the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention began a programme to eliminate the disease, AFP reports. Almost 10,000 cases were reported worldwide in 2006. 'Syphilis used to be very rare,' says Marita van de Laar, of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. 'I'm not sure we can say that any more.'
Teenagers put off sex by education
Sex-education programmes appear to discourage many teenagers from having sex before they're 15 and also encourage boys - but not girls - to use contraceptives, say US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention researchers, based on surveys of about 2,000 teens. Boys under 15 were 71 per cent less likely to have sex if they'd had sex education, and girls were 59 per cent less likely. Boys who'd had sex education were also almost three times as likely to use contraceptives, HealthDay.com reports. The survey didn't differentiate between programmes emphasising abstinence or contraception.
Small step forward for PMS sufferers
Researchers in Japan may finally have discovered one of the causes of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), for which no definite physiological trigger has been identified, despite numerous theories. A small study led by Tamaki Matsumoto of the International Buddhist University at Osaka found that the autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary processes such as heartbeat, respiration and digestion, is depressed in women with serious PMS symptoms, WebMD reports. 'We have found that an imbalance ... may be a cause of PMS, but not the only cause,' says Matsumoto.