Worldwide, 33.4 million people are living with HIV, including 2.1 children younger than 15. Even high-income countries like the US haven’t made much progress on reducing new cases of HIV.

For North American and Western and Central Europe, the number of new HIV infections for 2008 was 75,000, compared with 93,000 new cases in 2001. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of new HIV infections for 2008 was 1.9 million, compared with 2.3 million in 2001. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region most affected by HIV with 22.4 million people currently living with HIV. (Source: UnAIDS).

World AIDS Day is an international event, held since 1988. Visit WorldAIDSDay.org for more information on World AIDS Day 2009 and to read real stories from people living with HIV. LightsForRights.com focuses on human rights for World AIDS Day. Also, visit AIDS.gov from the US government.

HIV is a virus, but AIDS occurs when someone living with HIV can no longer fight off diseases that a typical immune system can handle.

How HIV is spread:

• A baby may be born with HIV if the mother carries it. If you plan on becoming pregnant, it’s important to know whether you have HIV.
• Drug users may get HIV from shared drug equipment like needles or syringes.
• People who have unprotected sex with an infected partner will get HIV. Use a condom. HIV may also be spread through oral sex.
• HIV may be passed on through breast milk, semen, vaginal fluids and blood.

While there’s no cure for HIV, early treatment may help keep the virus under control. Visit WorldAIDSDay.org or AIDS.gov for ideas on how you can Do Something to help.

(Image via AIDS.gov)

Post from: Blisstree

World AIDS Day: December 1

The “smell” theory deals with immune systems, with the idea that you are most attracted to someone whose system is very different from your own. This has to do with producing healthy children. Here’s something explaining it from Dr. Helen Fisher……

It’s about romantic compatibility, in this case “MHC” compatibility.  MHC means Major Histocompatibility Complex and it refers to a particular set of genes you inherit in your immune system, your body’s chemical defense system against intruding aliens, aliens in the form of bacteria, viruses and other no-good-niks.  Each of us inherits our own version of this complex set of genes. 

I will admit to running into the smell thing once. Quite a lot of years back, I dated the brother of a friend and I liked his personality very much, but his skin gave off this scent that I did not like. It was not sweat, it was the smell that came off his face, his arms, his body. I tried to talk myself past it, but I could not. It has only happened that once though and that boy, his family all came from one country, his ancestors, they all came from the same place.

My theory is this – we are becoming a world of “mutts” in that our “people” come from so many different places. My background is a mix of ancestors from all over the world. Won’t this issue with the smell and the immune systems work itself out in the end? Won’t we mix and mingle to a point where we either all like the smell of each other or all hate the smell of each other? 

What do you think?  Have you ever experienced anything like this, an inability to move forward with someone because you could not get past the way their skin smelled? 

Image credit: All Posters.com

Post from: Blisstree

Love Stinks

Great.

Maybe. Researchers at Queens University in Belfast say that sex makes our pelvic muscles stronger, which helps prevent incontinence. And scholars at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania discovered sex strengthens the immune system by up to 30%.

And guys who get off a lot? Well, that means they have 30% less chance of prostate cancer, too.

So, ladies (and men, I suppose!) reading this – what do you to “amp up” your mood when you’re just not feeling it???

Image: Sxc.hu

Post from: Blisstree

What Gets You in the Mood?

This definitely sounds like the body’s natural mechanism to attack cancerous cells. How exactly can this be done?

…the new program will allow researchers to continue advancing methods by which immune activating cells from humans are modified in the laboratory and infused into patients where they will trigger other immune cells to seek out and destroy cancer.

The said research program is led by McMaster University’s Jonathan Bramson in order to accelerate the work in this field through a new Cancer Immunotherapy Program being launched with $3.5 million in funding from the Terry Fox Foundation through the National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC).

Dr. Bramson explained:

“Tumours avoid immune attack by convincing the immune system that they are normal, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Our strategies are designed to teach the immune system how to spot the tell-tale signs of the wolf. In this way, the tumours will no longer be able to hide, but the healthy tissues will be left untouched.”

This research program hopes to bring into the world new cancer immunotherapy vaccines that will benefit not only Canada but the world.

Find more details from the full report.

Post from: Blisstree

The Power of the Immune System Against Cancer

After all, living and eating healthy all boils down to a strong or robust immune system that lessens our risk of having major diseases and of course, cancer.

Indeed, the link between the increasingly common lifestyle factors, the immune system and cancer, with the ultimate goals of preventing and better understanding cancer development are the issues under dissection at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting.

Like the gum disease-prostate cancer link. Harvard School of Public Health’s epidemiologists were able to show that diseased gums increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.

To confirm the initial findings, together with colleagues from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the University of Puerto Rico are now looking how and whether inflammation (specifically, systemic inflammation from periodontal disease) might be related to pancreatic cancer.

Another one is diet-induced obesity that wrecks the immune system of patients receiving cancer vaccine and that a man’s prediagnostic BMI (body mass index) pretty much determines his chances of surviving lethal prostate cancer.

So I guess we are all being reminded to eat healthy and take care of our gums and teeth. Let’s all watch what we eat: let’s eat healthy, be merry and never forget to brush out teeth. (I wanted that to rhyme, but i guess it didn’t…oh, well.)

Read the full report at AACR.

Post from: Blisstree

Of Diet, Obesity and Gum Disease: Their Link to Our Immune System and Cancer