Health
Are You A Fan Of Oral S*x? Read Why You Might Be At Risk Of Throat Cancer
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Many sexually active people engage in oral s*x.
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While such people consider the act pleasurable, there’s a chance of it not being healthy.
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Scientists have linked oral s*x to throat cancer.
Eko Hot Blog reports that Hisham Mehanna, a professor at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences in the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom (UK), has described oral s*x as the X-rated culprit behind a wave of throat cancer cropping up in the United States (US).
According to the New York Post, the sexual act is fueling a so-called “epidemic.”
EDITOR’S PICKS
In a Tuesday publication via the Conversation, Professor Mehanna wrote that the number of lifetime sexual partners can influence the risk of contracting oropharyngeal cancer.
“For oropharyngeal cancer, the main risk factor is the number of lifetime sexual partners, especially oral sex,” he wrote.
Cases of HPV-linked oropharyngeal cancer, a type of throat cancer, rose annually by 1.3% in women and 2.8% in men from 2015 to 2019, according to the American Cancer Society.
The Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), the US equivalent of Nigeria’s NCDC, estimates that 70% of oropharyngeal cancers — which affect the tonsils, base of the tongue and back of the throat — are caused by HPV infection in the US.
Past studies have shown that multiple sexual partners could increase the risk of catching HPV and, in turn, developing mouth or throat cancer.
HPV symptoms include a persistent sore throat, trouble swallowing or opening the mouth, difficulty moving the tongue and lumps in the mouth, throat and neck. (Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
In 2021, researchers discovered that people with 10 or more oral s*x partners were more than four times more likely to develop HPV-related mouth and throat cancers.
According to data from the CDC, 41% of teens from 15 to 19 participate in oral s*x.
Young people ages 15 to 24 were responsible for nearly half of the 26 million new STD infections in 2018.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections (STIs), affecting an estimated 42 million Americans.
In fact, it’s so prevalent, according to the CDC, that “nearly all sexually active men and women get the virus at some point in their lives.”
Notably, HPV is typically harmless as many people clear the virus on their own with no complications.
However, the virus can lead to cervical or oropharyngeal cancers in a small number of people who “are not able to get rid of the infection, maybe due to a defect in a particular aspect of their immune system,” according to Professor Mehanna.
FURTHER READING
“In those patients, the virus is able to replicate continuously, and over time integrates at random positions into the host’s DNA, some of which can cause the host cells to become cancerous,” he wrote.
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