Cousins! Recent studies show that there is an alarmingly growing number of people being diagnosed with throat cancer between both the U.K and U.S. Medical officials are warning that the newly declared epidemic may be caused by oral sex!
According to the New York Post; cases of oropharyngeal cancer, widely known as throat cancer has rose within the last couple of years: 1.3% in women and 2.8% in men from 2015 through 2019. Oral cancer affects the tonsils, base of the tongue as well as the back of the throat.
“For oropharyngeal cancer, the main risk factor is the number of lifetime sexual partners, especially oral sex,” says professor at the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences at the University of Birmingham Dr. Hisham Mehanna.
He warns that,”Those with six or more lifetime oral-sex partners are 8.5 times more likely to develop oropharyngeal cancer than those who do not practice oral sex.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declares that 70% of oral cancers within the United States are directly caused by HPV or Human Papilloma Virus.
HPV has been determined as being one of the leading sexually transmitted infections (STIs), in American affecting an approximately 42 million individuals.
According to reports from the CDC, “nearly all sexually active men and women get the virus at some point in their lives.”
“A small number of people are not able to get rid of the infection, maybe due to a defect in a particular aspect of their immune system,” explains Mehanna. “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.