Shaving pubic hair raises risk to an STD

According to the study, people who at one time in their lifetime “moved the lawn” stand twice as high risk to contracting an STD. The risk is much higher in the “extreme groomers.” This is a category of people who clear up their pubic hair over 11 times within 12 months. For the “Higher-frequency groomers,” those who trim some few times in a year lay between high and low risk. Their likelihood of getting an STD was about three times.

Benjamin Breyer, a urologist at the University of California, San Francisco and also lead researcher said that the facts they got were quite surprising. "Right now, we have no way knowing if grooming causes the increase in risk for infections. All we can say is that they're correlated. But I probably would avoid an aggressive shave right before having sex."

How the study was done

To carry out this study, 7,500 men and women of 18 to 65 years were surveyed by the researchers. Breyer and his team asked questions related to how frequently they groom. These were the questions asked: How often do you shave or wax? Do you shave it all off or just give it a trim? And they asked about their sex lives: How many partners have you had? What STDs have you had?

Of all these, more than 80 percent women and about two-thirds men revealed that they had at one time tended their lady garden. A little over 10% said that they fell under the group of “extreme groomers.”

What are the most prevalent infections?

HPV and syphilis (commonly affecting the skin) were found to be the most prevalent for the aggressive groomers. The link wasn’t straight away for infections like lice and gonorrhea. Actually, the lice depend on the hair for them to breed since they cement their eggs in the shafts. Thus, grooming can be seen as a control mechanism.

Scott Butler, who studies STDs in college students at Georgia College & State University, said that this study was an excellent one. He added that it was vital the health care providers be away of such findings.

But Butler went on to acknowledge the study has its own set of limitations. For instance, the researchers did not seek to find out whether the participants were having safe sex or not. It also didn’t inquire from them whether they had at one time been diagnosed before or after grooming.

"We know that shaving creates microtears and cuts," Gunter said. And if men and women are doing it right before sex, those wounds might not be healed, making it easier for viruses and bacteria to enter skin.”

Gunter added that pubic hair has a special role in the body. It protects just like the eyebrows, trapping bacteria and debris. Removing such has a set of health consequences. You are advised to regularly conduct STD testing to be sure of your health condition

Contributor: admin