Newly released statistics from rural clinics outside of Thohoyandou show that children as young as nine are falling pregnant or acquiring HIV infections.

This was revealed by Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba as she commented on the spiralling HIV infections and teenage pregnancies in rural schools in Dididi village, saying the country is being taken backward in its fight for an HIV-free generation.

Ramathuba recently held a teenage pregnancy awareness campaign in the area, after the shocking statistics were released.

According to the Department of Health, Mukhwantheli Secondary School in Dididi village has a record number of 36 pregnant learners.

Another 31 learners aged between nine and 19 from both primary and secondary schools in the same area have been infected with HIV, putting a strain on the department’s fight against the spread of HIV among the youth. 

“We are worried as a department when learners between nine and 14 are being found to be HIV positive and both their parents are negative. It tells us that most children in this age group could be involved in sexual activities,” said Ramathuba.

“Life is about choices and if you choose to engage in early sexual activity you will regret it when you grow older. Why should you break your virginity in the bushes when you can read books and be educated and successful in life to a point where you can choose any hotel in the world where you can then engage yourself in sexual activity as an adult?”

Ramathuba also reminded people not to be fooled by fake prophets who tell them they are cured of HIV and should stop taking their ARVs.

She said the high rate of alcohol consumption and lack of extra mural activities after school have been identified by the community as the driving forces behind the high rate of teenage pregnancies and the HIV infection rate.

Ndamulelo Liphadzi (23), a grade 12 learner at Mukhwantheli Secondary and mother of a three-month-old son, said she regrets not listening to the elders when they warned her about boys and engaging herself in early sexual intercourse. She now struggles to raise her son and keep up with her studies.

“I wish I had listened. I am now learning the hard way that raising a child is not an easy job, especially when you’re still at school. My message to others is to abstain from sexual activities so that you don’t end up having to do what I am doing at the moment.

“It is hard to focus on your studies while your child is crying and needs your attention,” she said.

-Halth-e News.

Ndivhuwo Mukwevho

Many semiconductor fabricators and research labs are under increasing pressure from, of all things, vacuum. These facilities need to remove greater amounts of gas molecules and particles from their setups as new technologies and processes demand lower and lower pressures. For example, the vacuum chambers in which microchip manufacturers lay down a series of ultrathin layers of chemicals step by step — a process that must be utterly free of contaminants — operate at about one hundred-billionth of the air pressure at sea level. Some applications need pressures at least a thousand times lower than that, approaching the even more rarefied environments of the Moon and outer space.

Florida has become a haven for invasive species in the United States, but perhaps the most well-known of the State’s alien residents is the Burmese python. These giant snakes, native to Southeast Asia, have become well-established over the past few decades and even flourish in their new environment.

When Adam Zeldis was 16, Howard Stern changed his mind about his penis forever. On his show, Stern was talking about how circumcision changes sexual sensations for men, and Zeldis’s curiosity was piqued. He had been circumcised as a baby, and he hadn’t ever thought about whether it had reduced sexual sensation for him before. In fact, up to that point, he had no idea that there were even men who weren’t circumcised.

So Zeldis decided to do some research. And when he learnt what a circumcision procedure actually entailed – the surgical removal of the foreskin of the tip of the penis – he was outraged.

“I felt a loss for a sex life that I could never have,” Zeldis told Men’s Health. “Basically, if you’re circumcised you can never experience sex the way nature intended it.”

Today, Zeldis is a senior strategy advisor for Intact America, an activist organisation designed to educate people against circumcision, which it views as a medically unnecessary and cruel practice. Intact America isn’t the only organisation that harbours this view: In fact, there is an entire movement – “Intactivism” – devoted to propagating the idea that male circumcision is a cruel and barbaric practice.

But what are the cold, hard facts about circumcision? Are there actually health benefits, or is it a cruel, outdated practice that permanently reduces male sexual sensation? We asked doctors and sexuality experts to weigh in.

Does circumcision have health benefits?

For decades, circumcision has been something of a given in the United States. It was considered a standard procedure for baby boys, regardless of their cultural or religious background, with doctors citing its health and hygiene benefits. For this reason, approximately 75% of men in the United States are circumcised, according to the World Health Organization.

Read more: Sex tips: What to do when she’s on top

The potential health benefits aside, “parents who choose circumcision often do so based on religious beliefs, common myths about hygiene, or cultural or social reasons, such as the wish to have their child resemble his father,” says sex therapist Kimberly Jackson, LCSW.

Doctors also believed circumcision cut down on the risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and urinary tract infections (UTIs), which, if left untreated, can lead to kidney infections.

“The cited health benefits included [a decreased risk of] STIs, especially HIV and HPV; penile cancer; paraphimosis (when foreskin gets trapped behind the glans, which can cut off blood supply to the tip of the penis) and balanitis, or infection of the glans,” says sexual health counsellor Aleece Fosnight, MSPAS, PA-C, CSC, CSE.

Are the benefits of circumcision legit?

To a degree, the consensus in the medical community is still that circumcision does slightly reduce the risks of certain UTIs and STIs. In 2012, the American Academy of Paediatrics issued a statement saying that notwithstanding the potential rare complications of circumcision, including bleeding, infection and (shudder) penile necrosis, “the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks”.

But over the years, emerging research has thrown some of the stated benefits of circumcision into question. For instance, while some studies of African men indicated that circumcision could reduce the risk of HIV transmission by as much as 60%, “the research design was inherently flawed – [they] only examined the health behaviours of heterosexual men, and the results cannot be generalised across cultures,” says Jackson.

Read more: If my partner is HIV positive, how can I protect myself?

That’s why more and more parents are choosing to forego the procedure. Circumcision is on something of a decline, with the number of newborns who are circumcised dropping from 84% in the 1960s to about 77% in 2010. Some doctors are also refusing to perform the procedure.

“I have not performed a circumcision since 1994,” says Dr Steven Dorfman, a paediatrician at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco. “It is a cruel, unnecessary and… substandard practice which belongs in the history books, not in the hospital or the clinic.”

As to the question of whether circumcision is more hygienic than being uncut, it is true that guys who are uncut do have to contend with smegma, an odourless (and harmless) cheese-like substance underneath the foreskin. But washing underneath the foreskin daily and rinsing the head of the penis can easily remedy that issue.

Does being circumcised reduce sexual sensation?

For many guys, this is the million-dollar question: Does circumcision reduce penile sensitivity?

Some health experts claim that circumcision can reduce sexual sensation, as the procedure removes thousands of nerve endings in the penis. In fact, a 2007 study found that the glans of the uncircumcised penis was more sensitive to light touch than the glans of a circumcised penis.

Read more: Do you have low penis self-esteem?

“It is also thought that the extra skin adds more friction and stimulation to the clitoris during penetration (both get extra pleasure!), and causes increased sensation to the glans as well,” says Fosnight.

That said, “studies show that there is no significant change in sensation in adult men who undergo circumcision,” says Dr Alex Shteynshlyuger, director of urology at New York Urology Specialists. A 2016 study confirmed this, finding that men who were circumcised experienced the same level of sexual pleasure as men who were not.

Do people prefer uncircumcised penises?

Although the research on the health and sexual benefits of circumcision is mixed, some parents still would prefer to circumcise their kids for aesthetic reasons – i.e., because they don’t want their sons to feel weird next to the other kids in the locker room. And some guys still do think that their sexual partners prefer circumcised penises to uncircumcised ones.

But when it comes down to it, that’s probably not the case. While there are few surveys indicating what people’s preferences are, a lot of people really don’t care if their sexual partners are circumcised or not – especially as more and more parents choose not to circumcise their kids.

Read more: Your ultimate guide to lasting longer in bed

“I don’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter to me. Plus, I’m not everyone’s idea of ‘perfect’ down there, either,” says Maria*, 38. Karina*, 26, agrees: “I don’t care one way or the other so long as it’s clean and disease-free. Cut, uncut, whatever, it’s the guy that matters. Not how his penis looks.”

^{*Names changed to protect privacy}

^{This article was originally published on www.mh.co.za}

^{Image credit: iStock}

A new study by researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) could help us understand how our planet was formed.

Unfortunately doctors still don’t know what causes irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) – but they believe that a combination of problems can lead to the condition.

They do know, however, that functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorders, such as IBS, are problems with brain-gut interaction (i.e. how your brain and stomach work together), according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

The NIDDK says, “Experts think that problems with brain-gut interaction may affect how your body works and cause IBS symptoms. For example, in some people with IBS, food may move too slowly or too quickly through the digestive tract, causing changes in bowel movements. Some people with IBS may feel pain when there’s a normal amount of gas or stool in the gut.”

Although common symptoms of IBS affect the stomach and digestive system, there are other symptoms that don’t. Here are four:

1. Headaches

According to Dr Bethany DeVito, a gastroenterologist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York, it’s common for IBS patients to report symptoms unrelated to digestion. She says there is an established connection between IBS and migraines in the medical community.  

For example, a 2005 study published in the Polish Journal of Neurology and Neurosurgery found that 23 to 53% of people with IBS suffer from frequent headaches, while 10 to 20% experience migraine headaches and IBS.

Another study, published in BMC Gastroenterology, says that people with IBS are 40 to 80% more likely to suffer from migraines, fibromyalgia and/or depression than those who don’t have IBS.

A 2012 study published in Current Pain and Headache Reports reports a further connection between migraine headaches, IBS and coeliac disease (hypersensitivity to gluten).

Some patients find that symptoms of IBS and migraines occur simultaneously. “During the migraine attacks, some patients also have associated gastrointestinal disturbances, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea,” Dr DeVito said. Other patients report that IBS symptoms occur between headache attacks.

Stress is one factor that can cause both symptoms. “This mind-body connection is real and can greatly influence health,” said Dr Maxwell Chait, gastroenterologist at Columbia Doctors Medical Group in Hartsdale, New York. Serotonin is another: “Serotonin is a major neurotransmitter of the gastrointestinal tract that plays a relevant part in IBS as well as migraine.”

2. Frequent urination

Researchers aren’t sure why but bowel and bladder problems overlap. Research shows that 50% of people who have IBS suffer from urinary issues, which include an overactive bladder (OAB), incomplete emptying of the bladder, getting up in the night to urinate (nocturia), and urinary urgency. Ally Marie believes that because she has IBS-C, her full bowel often puts pressure on her bladder, causing her to urinate frequently.

“Having IBS-C and not IBS-D, I don’t have to deal with sprinting to the bathroom on a plane ride for #2, but I’m that annoying person that says, ‘Excuse me!’ 10 times on a flight because I constantly have to pee! I also have very interrupted sleep because I have to get up multiple times in the night to pee (nocturia). Also, just like I never feel as if I completely finish a bowel movement, I always feel like I could pee again, right after I finish going #1.”

3. Fatigue

When you suffer from IBS, you can become fatigued when your symptoms are triggered. According to the NIDDKD, common food triggers include fatty foods, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, dairy, caffeine, beans, cabbage and other gas-causing foods.

IBS can also cause fatigue due to intestinal inflammation, which lowers levels of glutamic acid. Eva Cwynar, author of The Fatigue Solution, explains that lower glutamic acid levels mean lower levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, which is an agent that helps to calm the brain.

The result of low GABA levels? Exhaustion, restlessness, stress and fatigue. 

4. Anxiety and depression

People who have IBS often suffer from anxiety and depression, which can in turn worsen symptoms, says the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA). Why? Because the nervous system controls the colon, which responds to stress. According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse an estimated 70% of people with IBS do not receive treatment to manage their symptoms. And of those who do seek help, between 50 and 90% have a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety or depression.

The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) says the following can help:

• Antidepressants can minimise anxiety and depression symptoms, which in turn can help with IBS.
• Cognitive behavioural therapy can teach you how to cope with anxiety and depression. The British Society of Gastroenterology recommends psychological therapy as the first-line treatment for IBS if you have a history of anxiety, panic attacks or depression. The American College of Gastroenterology also recommends therapy, which can reduce anxiety and IBS symptoms. 
• The ADAA suggests practising relaxation techniques to help reduce and manage stress. 

^{Image credit: iStock} 

Compiled by Mandy Freeman

A new study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy has revealed that feeling “down” instead of “up” after sex is also commonly experienced by men, not just women. This is known as post-coital dysphoria or the “post-sex blues”.

It’s previously been found to be prevalent in women, but scientific research has not recognised it as affecting men. The study conducted by Queensland University researchers surveyed men from Australia, the UK, the US, Russia, New Zealand and Germany.

Read more: 7 surprising signs of depression that prove it’s not all about sadness

The study found that 41% of the participants had experienced post-coital dysphoria in the four weeks before doing the survey. Four percent of those said they experienced it on a regular basis. Some of the feelings the men reported were feeling emotionless and empty. “I don’t want to be touched and want to be left alone” and “I feel unsatisfied, annoyed and very fidgety. All I really want is to leave and distract myself from everything I participated in,” was also common.

Does this sound like you? We chatted to Dr Eugene Viljoen. He’s a clinical psychologist and sexologist, President of the Southern African Sexual Health Association and a worldwide lecturer and advisor. Here’s everything you need to know about post-coital dysphoria.

What exactly is post-coital dysphoria?

“After sex one might want to feel invigorated and boosted. But some people feel the opposite, being agitated, argumentative, anxious, depressed or just plainly upset after sex. This has nothing to do with the subjective feeling about the quality of consensual sex. The emotions run wild in a negative way and the person would wonder why they feel so bad (distressed) after sex, without being able to describe a single contributing factor,” said Dr Viljoen.

Read more: How to use the latest tech to have better sex and improve your relationship

What are the symptoms?

“The primary symptoms are described as feeling depressed. A negative emotional reaction follows the orgasm, without specific reasons for the depressed mood. It is possible that it may linger for a number of days after the sexual event.”

What is the cause of it?

“Although according to research studies, it seems as if more woman might suffer from this, men may also have the condition. The real reasons are not yet fully understood. But it seems as if the neurotransmitters in the area of the brain responsible for the feel good effect, do not function in the normal expected ways. Childhood sexual abuse may play a role as well in triggering negative emotions suffered during the initial trauma and bringing back old bad memories,” explains Dr Viljoen.

Read more: This will change what you think about male sexual abuse

When speaking to The Independent, co-author of the Australian study, Robert Schweitzer had this to say:

“If we are to extrapolate from what we know about Post-Coital Depression [PCD] in women, we would propose a biopsychosocial model, as there seems to be a range of factors including genetic susceptibility, possible hormonal factors and potentially, psychological factors which we do not understand at this time.”

Does it say something about my sex life or my partner?

“We don’t think it is about the relationship, but something more complex,” said the study’s co-author Joel Maczkowiack. And Dr Viljoen echoes this, “The fact that you feel like this after sex, unless you can contribute the reasons to specific factors of what makes you sad at the moment, does not have a direct link with how well you are perceived as a lover.

“The post-orgasmic blues are bigger than mere disappointment and more painful than outright embarrassment. It is a legitimate medical condition which will need medical intervention.”

Read more: Will you get superpowers if you stop masturbating?

How do I talk to my partner about it?

“Like any sexual issue, involvement of the partner is crucial. If she would see you being sad after sex, she might immediately think you find her to be a disappointment in bed, or not good enough. Even if you want to disguise the feelings, she might be able to pick up on the sadness and make her own deductions,” said Dr Viljoen.

“This might lead to conflict and making the situation worse. Talk to her about your feelings. Assure her it has nothing to do with the quality of your sexual relationship. Ask for her support and visit a sexologist who might be able to help you with the condition.”

What if my partner doesn’t understand?

Dr Viljoen says that it would be a sad affair if the partner does not want to understand the situation. “This might depend on the partners own psychological issues and emotional maturity. If the partner would not open herself to understand the condition, the relationship might be in danger due to a lack of support and understanding.”

But Maczkowiack has said post-coital dysphoria could potentially cause distress to not only the individual, but to the partner, too. This is because kissing, talking and cuddling after sex are known to boost intimacy and create a bond.

Read more: This study on older adults’ sex lives proves your sex life isn’t doomed

“The negative affective state which defines PCD has potential to cause distress to the individual, as well as the partner, disrupt important relationship processes, and contribute to distress and conflict within the relationship, and impact upon sexual and relationship functioning,” he said.

The good news? Another 2015 study on women and PCD found that there was no relationship between post-coital dysphoria and intimacy in close relationships.

What can I do about feeling sad after sex?

According to Dr Viljoen, this is not a condition that would get better after time doing nothing. “It might even get worse if you ignore the symptoms, due to developing anxiety prior to intercourse about the possible emotional feelings afterwards.

“See a sexual health specialist who would prescribe medication for the mood disorder. It would also be important to get some counselling in conjunction with the medication, as the medication in itself can produce side effects not ideal for successful intercourse.”

^{This article was originally published on www.mh.co.za}

^{Image credit: iStock}

People who have better spatial memory are also better at identifying odors, according to a study published this week in Nature Communications. The study builds on a recent theory that the main reason that a sense of smell evolved was to aid in navigation, since most animals rely primarily on smell to find food and avoid predators. The McGill research team, led by Véronique Bohbot from McGill’s Department of Psychiatry and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, hypothesized that if this were indeed the case, there would be a strong link between navigation and olfaction. The researchers were able to show, for the first time, that similar regions of the brain (the hippocampus and the medial orbitofrontal cortex) are involved in these seemingly very different activities. They also discovered that the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), which is known to be involved in olfaction, is also critical to spatial memory.

The prairies of North America once covered vast stretches of land, with towering grasses creating ideal nesting and forage habitat for grassland birds. But the deep, rich soil and treeless expanse also represented the ideal conditions for farming — both row crops and cattle grazing — in the eyes of settlers. Today, largely thanks to agricultural conversion, a mere 1 percent of tallgrass prairie remains. And what’s left is now being threatened by invasive species and forest encroachment.

Manufacturing constraints mean some jabs won’t be available until late November, says chief medical officer.