Oral Sex Has Become the Leading Cause of Mouth/Throat Cancer

Smoking, alcohol consumption have long been blamed for causing mouth cancer – but they are set to be overtaken by ORAL SEX.

Oral sex carries the risk of STI transmission, including genital herpes, chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. The shock revelation comes due to the spread of cases caused by HPV, or the human papillomavirus .

Mouth cancer can occur on various areas of the mouth including the tongue, the lips, the inside of the cheek, in the gums and the throat.

Although HPV is in itself not actually cancerous, it can affect the cells, causing abnormal tissue growth in the mouth. This can eventually lead to mouth or oral cancer, according to experts.

HPV, known to scientists as the human papilloma viruses, are a group of more than 100 viruses transmitted through contact. Some of the HPV strains cause warts on other parts of the body, but about 40 strains infect the genital areas.

It can be passed with just skin-to-skin contact — even with a condom, though condoms can lower the risk of catching the virus. The best way to avoid HPV is to get vaccinated against it. Widespread vaccination against HPV would significantly reduce these cancers, since the shot protects against the cancer-causing strains HPV16 and HPV18, among others.

These can be passed to the mouth and throat and infect cells there through oral sex, and even open-mouthed kissing, according to a 2009 study in the Journal Of Infectious Diseases. These infected cells sometimes form into tumors.

It takes decades for HPV infections to manifest into cancers. Other factors may increase the probably of an HPV-infected throat becoming cancerous. Smoking and drinking make these cancers more likely, according to the CDC.

The increased rate of HPV throat cancers may be because of increasing oral sex or higher rates of the virus in the population, as people are more sexually liberal and having more sexual partners.

Most sexually active people will be exposed to at least one strain of HPV during their life. Most of the time, our immune systems can clear the virus without it causing symptoms. If the virus isn't cleared, it can linger and, if it's one of the cancer-causing strains, it could cause cancer.

Oral sex can be an enjoyable, healthy part of an adult relationship. But there are some things that many people don't know about oral sex. Here are four facts that might surprise you.

Oral sex is linked to throat cancer.

Cancer? Yes, you can get throat cancer from oral sex, says American Cancer Society Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley, MD.

It's not oral sex, per se, that causes cancer, but the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can be passed from person to person during sex, including oral sex.

Researchers have found that some cancers of the oropharynx (the middle of the throat) and tonsils are probably caused by a certain type of human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is common, but it doesn't always cause cancer. If you aren't exposed to HPV during oral sex, you're not at risk for cancer.

Brawley says that hints of a link between HPV and oropharyngeal cancer came in the late 1980s and early '90s. Researchers noticed an increase in this kind of cancer among people who hadn't been very prone to it before.

It began to affect increasing numbers of people around the age of 40 that didn't smoke or drink, whereas in prior decades these cancers were usually found in older people that smoked cigarettes and heavily drank hard liquor.

In the early 2000s, scientists were able to use advanced DNA testing to find HPV 16 in many of these newer cancers.

Brawley determined that sexual activity must be involved.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007 showed a greater risk for oropharyngeal cancer in people that had had oral sex with at least six different partners. The DNA signature of HPV type 16 was often found more often in the cancers of people who had multiple oral sex partners.

Oral sex is linked to throat cancer.

It's still unclear how many people get HPV throat infections by oral sex, or how many of them get oropharyngeal cancer, Brawley reports.

Both men and women can have an HPV infection in the throat. "It doesn't discriminate by gender," Brawley says.

"The population that I thought would be least likely to get it was the first population to have this problem," he says. That population was heterosexual men aged 40-50.

Doctors know, however, that oropharyngeal cancers caused by HPV are easier to treat than those caused by factors like smoking and drinking.

Brawley says the best prevention method is still unclear, but "in terms of public awareness, this information certainly should be available to people," he says.

Expanding the use of the HPV vaccine could be one approach, but Brawley says, "I'm not sure that we have studies enough to make a blanket assertion that this is a reason to vaccinate boys for HPV." The FDA has approved the HPV vaccine Gardasil for males aged 9-26 -- but only to help prevent genital warts in those boys and young men, not as a way to curb HPV infection in their partners. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices allows but doesn’t require boys as young as 9 to get Gardasil.

Unprotected oral sex is common, but has risks.

Several sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, HPV, and viral hepatitis can be passed on through oral sex.

"Oral sex is not safe sex," says Terri Warren, RN, owner of Westover Heights Clinic in Portland, Ore., a private clinic specializing in STDs. "It's safer sex, but it's definitely not safe sex."

The risks depend on a lot of different things, including how many sexual partners you have, your gender, and what particular oral sex acts you engage in.

Using barrier protection can reduce the risk of getting an STD. A barrier can be a condom covering the penis, or a plastic or latex "dental dam" placed over the vulva or anus. Instead of a prepackaged dental dam, a condom cut open to make a sheet is also an acceptable barrier.

But most people don't use protection for oral sex. That's common wisdom, and it's also shown by large-scale surveys of sexually active teens and adults.

That's probably because many people don't know that STDs can be spread orally. Or if they do, they don't see the health risks as being very serious, Warren says.

The risks of getting an STD from unprotected oral sex are typically much lower than the risks posed by having unprotected vaginal or anal sex, Warren says.

Warren's advice about using barrier protection for oral sex depends on whom she's talking to. Typically, performing oral sex on a male partner without a condom is riskier than other forms of oral sex, she says.

For example, Warren says she might stress the importance of condom use for a man having oral sex with multiple male partners.

"If a male is giving oral sex to a woman, I consider that to be a low-risk exposure," Warren says. But if a woman's regular partner has oral herpes, "that's a whole different discussion," she says.

Oral sex is common among teens.

Many U.S. teens have oral sex before they have vaginal sex. And they don't view it as very risky, says Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD, a pediatrics professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

Compared with vaginal sex, "They really don't consider it as big of a deal," Halpern-Felsher tells WebMD. Past surveys Halpern-Felsher conducted showed that most teens thought that engaging in oral sex would not put them at risk for social, emotional, or health problems. Other surveys she has performed showed teens who said they only had oral sex were less likely than those who had vaginal sex or vaginal and oral sex to report STDs.

Still, there were STDs among all three groups of sexually active teens. Just under 2% of teens who said they'd only had oral sex said they caught an STI, compared with about 5% of those who had vaginal sex only, and 13% of those who had vaginal and oral sex.

The oral sex-only teens were also less likely than other sexually active teens to report getting into trouble with parents, experiencing negative feelings, or having a worsening relationship with a partner because of their sexual activity.

Source:  WebMd and Business insider reports

Photos credited to Positive drugs and cancerbox.org