Dr. Mercola December 06 2007 64,187 views
Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis infections rose again in the United States in 2006, the second year in a row that rates of these sexually transmitted bacterial infections increased.
The rate of chlamydia increased by 5.6 percent between 2005 and 2006, with more than 1 million reported chlamydia cases in 2006 -- the highest number of annual U.S. cases ever for any sexually transmitted disease. According to the CDC, the reported cases of chlamydia are likely less than half the actual occurrence.
The rate of gonorrhea rose 5.5 percent in 2006, with more than 350,000 cases reported, and the rate of syphilis rose 13.8 percent, with nearly 10,000 cases.
About 19 million new sexually transmitted infections occur each year in the U.S., almost half among people ages 15 to 24. “This is a hidden epidemic,” said Dr. Stuart Berman, who helps track STD’s for the CDC.
According to Dr. John Douglas, who heads CDC STD prevention efforts, local and state health departments lack the funds necessary for prevention programs, and lack of health care insurance among many Americans might be a contributing factor as well.
These alarming statistics should serve to reinforce the benefits of abstinence, or at the very least safe sex. Staying involved with your children’s lives and teaching them about the “realities of life” is paramount in this case, as they will surely learn other, less responsible versions through mass media.
In previous studies, teen intercourse has also been linked to higher incidences of depression and suicide. Energy psychology tools like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) can be very helpful to teens who are having problems with sexual addictions, feelings of pressure, or negative self-images that may be leading them to have sex before they are emotionally ready.
It is important to educate sexually active teens and young adults that safe sex practices do NOT include birth control pills. In fact, the risk of contracting an STD when on the pill, or using other hormonal contraceptives, is 35 to 50 percent higher than when using non-hormonal contraceptives, such as condoms.
It is also important to know that while many STD’s are easily treated when caught early, they can cause severe health problems if left untreated.
Chlamydia: Health Risks and Treatment
The chlamydia bacteria, for example, can trigger heart disease, in addition to lung and eye infections.
A protein on the outer coat of the bacteria mimics a protein found in your heart muscle. Normally this molecular mimicry allows the bacterium to evade your immune system. But sometimes your immune cells are not fooled; they mount an attack against the chlamydia germs, which can be misdirected against your heart cells as if they were the enemy. So what scientists found is that you do not need to have bacterial damage to your heart in order for bacteria to cause heart disease.
Heart attack survivors may also quadruple their risk for a second coronary or other adverse cardiac problems if blood tests show evidence of infection with a form of chlamydia. Other health problems caused by untreated chlamydia, as well as gonorrhea infections include:
Chlamydia is easily treated with antibiotics. However, it is also very important to boost your immune system with nutritional interventions, as people who follow my diet recommendations do much better with the antibiotics. They do not generally experience a severe worsening of their symptoms, and usually respond very well to the treatment.
Gonorrhea Becoming Antibiotic Resistant
As of this year, the CDC had to revise their antibiotic treatment guidelines after a sharp and rapid rise in fluoroquinolone-resistant gonorrhea. Currently, only the cephalosporins, which are antibiotics such as Rocephin, are recommended for gonorrhea treatment. According to the CDC, new gonorrhea drugs are urgently needed, but none is in the drug development pipeline as of yet.
Since treatment options are rapidly running out for this common STD, making sure you’re practicing safe sex, and maintaining a healthy immune system, would surely be the most logical option.
If left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to infertility. It can also spread to your blood or joints, which can be a life threatening condition. In addition, if you have gonorrhea you can more easily contract HIV, and HIV-infected people with gonorrhea are more likely to transmit HIV to someone else.
Syphilis – A Dangerous Imitator
The syphilis bacterium has often been called “the great imitator” because so many of its signs and symptoms are indistinguishable from those of other diseases, which makes it that more important to get properly tested for the disease at frequent intervals.
While the first two stages are marked by the appearance of small sores, followed by skin rashes or lesions, the late stages of syphilis may cause severe damage to your internal organs, including your:
This internal damage can take years to show up. Signs and symptoms of the late stage of syphilis include difficulty coordinating muscle movements, paralysis, numbness, gradual blindness, and dementia. It can even be serious enough to cause death.
Fortunately, syphilis is also easy to “cure” if you catch it in its early stages. A single intramuscular injection of penicillin will kill the bacteria if you’ve had syphilis for less than a year. Additional doses are needed if you’ve had syphilis for longer than a year.
It’s important to remember that the antibiotic treatment kills the syphilis bacterium and prevents further damage, but it cannot repair damage that has already been done.
What You Need to Know When Taking Antibiotics
As you can see, antibiotic treatment is the only treatment protocol currently available for these STD’s. And while they can save you from further internal damage caused by the bacteria, taking antibiotics comes at a price as well.
Simply put, antibiotics are poisons that are used to kill, and they do so quite indiscriminately, killing both good and bad bacteria at the same time. As an adult human, you have three to four pounds of beneficial bacteria and yeast living within your intestines. These microbes compete for nutrients from the food you eat. Usually, the strength in numbers that beneficial bacteria enjoy keeps the ever-present yeasts in check, and causes them to produce nutrients such as the B vitamins.
However, every time you swallow antibiotics, you kill the beneficial bacteria within your intestines. As your intestinal bacteria die, you upset the delicate balance of your intestinal terrain so that yeasts can grow unchecked into large colonies and take over.
Any time you take antibiotics, your friendly bacteria, which include Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidus and Bulgaricus, must be replaced. Fortunately, you can easily buy these probiotics supplements at your local health food store.
Islander: Actually, Planned Parenthood is the single largest abortion provider in the United States, aborting over 1/4 million unborn children each year.
You're an idiot. When you stop believing that accessible abortions = your kid's willingness to go out & have unprotected sex - well hey, by all means, eat a hundred cheeseburgers & then go sue your cardiologist for "enabling" you to lead this "questionable lifestyle" The Healthcare Provider is NOT YOUR PROBLEM!!!
If your kid is having unprotected sex, you got no one to blame but yourself. Yes, they have a thousand mass-media influences coming at them 24-7, but the home environment they grew up in is still the primary influence.
You're right on ONE point, society is sexualizing our youth. Which is WHY it is all the more important to EDUCATE THEM & give them access to health resources (even confidential, non-judgemental ones that you may find "morally questionablr").
TV has become so sexually charged, I can't even turn on the afternoon news without seeing barely dressed people often involved in some sex act, when a comercial comes on. To make matters worse much of the food on the market is filled with added hormones. Statistics shows that kids are reaching puberty at much younger ages. This is not helping kids to abstain form sex. As long as making a buck is the priority in this country, there will be obesity, there will be vaccine and drug realted injuries, also school and mall shootings, as well as illegal wars. If it needs to be Ron Paul so be it, but we need a president who serves the public not corporations.
You might want to check what the pregnancy rate for the Pilgrims amongst teens. Sure, any numbers such as this are bad, but please, don't fall for the scare tactics of the Religious Right (wrong)!
12 years of whacko religious school almost made me Republican!!! Oh my, bizarre sex education from crazed celibates!!!
Home schooled kids, run when you can!!!
Readwell: Sexual activity amongst preteens was already a problem. It demanded a solution. Condoms and abortions. They did not create the problem, bad parenting and an irresponsible adult culture being idolized has.
One more major reason not to send your children to government indoctrination school. It is the parents' responsibility to teach their children, not the government's. Unfortunately, the public school experiment has not yeat come to an end.
Why should children fare better in the care (?) of a stranger, or a number of strangers? And, why should children spend most of every day in the company of other children? They should be learning (and learning moral standards is mostly by example) how to be responsible adults, not how to be better at being immature children.
Private schools can be somewhat better, but only if the teachers are of high moral caliber. Still, associating with other children for most of the day is not positive.
Mass schools are festering places for disease. And the best thing the schools seem to be able to come up with to counter this is to expose them to disease (vaccination). It appears to me that most of the infections my children develop come from their public schooled friends. They still are healthier than the public schooled friends, particularly those who are drugged at school.
Government schools are supported by violence. The money they run on is obtained by threatening to kill people (taxpayers). It would be more honest if that nice public school teacher came to your door and stuck you up, rather than doing the same thing indirectly through administrators and police.
The problem is most parents don't know their kids.
I have taken steps to correct this in my life, and was astonished to find my 15 year old daughter had been having sex with what she called randoms.
I knew about the boyfriend, and organized contraception for that, but the random stranger ****ing my daughter sent shock waves through my poor brain. ( Sorry, but there was no love in this act, and so the terminology is appropriate. )
Her explanation: She was bored!
I cannot stop her, but explained just how dangerous this is, and on how many different levels.
Keep your kids entertained, and have a very very close relationship with them, so they really can tell you everything. It may shock you to your core, but at least you are in a position to do something about it.
It's off to the std clinic for us to get a full set of tests done...
You guys commenting really need to get away from the theory, and start getting serious on the practical aspects of controlling this problem.
Teen sex is, was, and always has been a major issue. The only difference is that people now are more ( slightly ) relaxed about telling others their story.
The cause is always the same, unloved, lonely, bored, neglected kids.
There are always exceptions to the rule, but generally healthy relationships lead to healthy relationships.
The rate of divorce, and failed relationships are on the rise, and we have forgotten the most important thing.
The first thing to do for your kids is to love their mother/father. This is paramount!
It is not always going to come naturally, it takes work, and sometimes is as simple as just not saying anything.
Need I say more? How about humility is a virtue?
While I agree with you, this is one breed of disease which is not caused by a deficiency in anything. These infections are almost always contracted through sexual activity. The real epidemic in this country is obvious.
I feel so bad for those that have been raised in homes without sound morals, deep in their hearts. My parents raised 3 kids that all remained virgins until their beautiful, special, sweet wedding nights. Two girls, and 1 boy. Well, man, he was 30 years old. We're all still married to our loves, and my parents now have 11 beautiful grandchildren between us. We have the best time together. No splits in our immediate family.
Sure, it wasn't easy for us. Personally, what kept me pure was my strong desire to wear that white dress down the aisle, and not have it be a lie. I didn't want to disappoint my parents, my self, and my loving God. Do I regret it ever, even for one day? Of course not.
A huge help was to know that my parents also waited and saved themselves for one another, until they were married. I thought that if they could wait for 4 years, than I could wait the 3 (I was only 15 when we met). I love that I don't ever have to even think of STDs. Not an issue. I don't think I could handle the fear of the "what ifs".
My grandparents left my parents the same legacy, and now we leave our 3 beautiful, healthy children with it. It was never an issue growing up. It was just the way it was. You don't kiss a boy until you're 16 (because it all gets harder once that starts- so wise, my parents), and you don't have sex until that magical wedding night. It was exactly as they said it would be, and by the way, the way God intended, so of course it's the better way. This way you avoid heart ache, heart break, regrets, disease, jealousy, etc. Peace, love, and respect for your mate is what you have.
We are not animals. We have self control (I'm not saying it's easy, because it's NOT). We need to set the bar higher for our kids and don't just think that "they're going to do it anyway". No, it's not acceptable, so they won't. That's it. Just my personal experience.
thank you for your testimony. God will use it. it always works better when we do things His way.
jrfamily - This is so refreshing to hear! STDs are an ugly consequence of the growing immorality in our society. Planned Parenthood advocates, please rethink your approach. We were never meant to tamper with God's miracles or advocate any type of "safe" premarital sex. For all you objective thinkers, the evidence is here and growing...proven by this article and the reality of sexual perversion. Educating teenagers about "safe" sex is not the answer.
I don't see the need to be abstinent until marriage as the dividing line for morality. I don't even plan to get married. This is mostly religious extremism. I am sorry, but marriage doesn't make sex okay if it's under the wrong circumstances, and under the right ones, you don't need it.
You are right...parents don't want to be parents anymore. In many ways I can see how this has come about - Social Services will threaten to take your kids if you dicipline in a fasion they don't approve of (ie, swat to the behind, or backhanding), the sheer consumerism that says we have to have all this stuff - which means that there HAS to be two incomes to keep up with it all, the schools treat parents like they are stupid and don't know what children need, or how they learn (in some cases, this is true unfortunately) and we are a totally drugged up society that is more concerned with what's happening on Survivor, Nip/Tuck or House to pay any attention to what is really happening in our communities. In many cases (have seen far too many for myself) parents are simply selfish.
We also have the government who has said "Trust Me!" and they took them at their word, and now we are paying the price....in our freedoms, our health and our society.....makes me very sad.....
It's not "the talk", it's continual communication and openness. The environment we have with our kids needs to be one of trust and safety and honesty. It can't just pop up one day and go away. We need to have an ongoing dialogue. We need to have relationships with our children.
In regards to the school issue. That is so true. It is unfortunate that people are so blinded and brainwashed about what kind of schooling is important and what it is really doing to our children. I recommend the Waldorf School.