Syphilis cases are up in gay men, according to the Delaware Department of Public Health.

76 cases of syphilis were reported to the Health Department last year. Nearly all of them were diagnosed among gay men, and the majority of those cases were in New Castle County. The department says this may be part of a rising trend in syphilis among gay men throughout the country, as increases in cases have been reported in cities such as New York, Miami, San Francisco and Chicago.

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that’s transmitted from contact with an infected person. The disease can go for years without showing any symptoms, and can lead to neurological and cardiovascular problems, among others. The Health Department says that safer sex practices and STD testing play a major role in preventing and treating the disease. The department says syphilis can be treated with just a single shot of penicillin.

Delaware Syphilis Cases on the Rise

Gay Men particularly Hard Hit

Safer Sex Practices and more Testing Vital

The Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) reported today a sharp increase in Syphilis cases among men who have sex with men (MSM).  In 2011, 76 cases of early syphilis were reported to DPH compared with 23 cases for the same time period in 2010.  over 90% of these cases were among MSM with the majority occurring in New Castle County.

The Delaware data demonstrates the vital role that safer sex practices and sexually-transmitted disease testing play in prevention and treatment.

The increase is cases may be part of a larger trend across the country.  according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), increases among MSM have been reported in Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Southern California, Miami, and New York City over the past several years.  In these cases, a corresponding high rate of Human Immunodeficiency (HIV) co-infection have also been documented in these outbreaks, ranging from 20 percent to 70 percent.

Although syphilis infection occurs from persons with syphilitic sores who are in the early stages of the disease, many of these sores are unrecognized. Thus, transmission may occur from persons who are unaware of their infection. Many people infected with syphilis in the later stages do not have any symptoms for years, yet if untreated, can lead to damage throughout the body including neurological and cardiovascular complications. Syphilis also increases the risk of HIV infection and, for women, can cause problems during pregnancy and for the newborn.

In most cases, syphilis is easily treated with a single injection of penicillin. Penicillin will also stop syphilis infection in contacts that may not yet show symptoms or signs.  For further information on syphilis symptoms, prevention, and treatment, call Delaware Division of Public Health’s STD Program at 302-744-1050

I’ve heard more than a few Bay Area pet owners say that they don’t treat their pets with a monthly heartworm preventative because heartworm isn’t a big issue here — especially in San Francisco. we generally don’t have many mosquitoes buzzing about — the culprits responsible for transmitting the disease.

After Alice’s recent adverse reaction to Trifexis, I’ve been increasingly more wary of overmedicating my pooch, but recent reports seem to indicate that heartworm may be more prevalent, even here in the city, than we had previous thought.

According to a recent survey by the American Heartworm Society (AHS), heartworm-positive pets have been diagnosed in nearly every county and parish in every state in our country. the organization conducts the American Heartworm Incidence Survey every three years to track trends in heartworm incidence, using data from clinic heartworm testing and numbers of heartworm-positive dogs and cats. AHS gathered the 2010 data from more than 5,000 veterinary clinics across the country.

The infection rate in male dogs is as much as four times that of female dogs, and dogs housed outdoors are four to five times more likely to be infected than indoor dogs.

Treatment for heartworm infection is available, but is costly and requires strict supervision by both veterinarians and owners — and a month or more of cage confinement. the annual cost of prevention is roughly 10 percent of the cost of treatment. In addition, some heartworm medications treat other parasites as well.

The AHS recommends to both veterinarians and pet owners that pets be tested for heartworm each year and that dogs be put on heartworm prevention year-round. “Some owners, and even some veterinarians, question the necessity of following these recommendations, thinking that the cold or dry climate they live in makes such vigilance unnecessary,” says says veterinarian and AHS President Wallace Graham. “However, we can cite case after case of heartworm-positive pets living in areas assumed to be low-risk. It only takes one bite from an infected mosquito for a pet to acquire a heartworm infection.”

What is heartworm?

Heartworm disease is so named because the adult worms live in the right side of an animal’s heart. Heartworm is a mosquito-borne parasite that is transmitted when an infective mosquito is feeding. the infected larvae enter the dog through the hole that is created in the dog’s skin. only a few of the many species of mosquitoes are significant vectors for hearworm. In Northern California, three species are thought to be the major carriers.

Where are dogs at the highest risk for contracting heartworm in California?

Dogs and outdoor cats at greatest risk of infection in California are those that live in the foothill plant climate zone of either the coast range or the Sierra Nevada mountain range. This includes areas with 65 cm of rainfall or more per year and elevations between 400 and 3000 feet. Next at risk are outdoor pets living in the upper Sacramento Valley along the Sacramento, Feather and American Rivers or their tributaries. This is followed by outdoor pets living in the intermediate valleys plant climate zone, which include much of the region between the mountains of the coast range. In these three areas, prevalence in dogs varies from 14 to 174 infected dogs per 1,000 examined or 1.4 to 17%. These figures are based upon prevalence data collected on over 75,000 dogs examined from 1983 through 1999 in Northern California. All were kept outdoors day, night, or both day and night without prophylactic treatment. at least risk of infection are pets in the coastal plant climate zone of the San Francisco Bay Area that are always kept indoors, with no travel out of that area. the Santa Cruz Mountains and Woodside are higher due to the increased population of coyotes in these regions which serve as a vector to transmit the disease.

Why is regular heartworm testing necessary?

A number of blood tests are available to diagnose heartworms. the most accurate is the heartwormantigen test, which identifies an antigen produced by the adult female heartworm. False negatives occur in dogs with early infections (before the appearance of mature worms), in light infections with fewer than five adult worms, and in infections in which only males are present. False positives are rare. if a dog is given heartworm prevention medication without proper testing, the medication could kill the pet. while heartworm medications are retroactive, meaning that they typically kill immature heartworm larvae that have infected a pet during the previous month, pets living for months without prevention medication could be infected with mature heartworms that require medication injected by the veterinarian to kill worms and prevent damage to the heart. no pet should be given heartworm medication without proper testing.

What are symptoms of heartworm?

In dogs, the signs of heartworm disease depend on the number of worms and the size of the animal. Pets with a mild infestation may remain asymptomatic. the typical early signs of heartworm infestation are lethargy, lack of appetite weight loss and a soft, deep cough. as the disease progresses these symptoms become more severe. *

What is the treatment for heartworm in dogs?

There are three stages of heartworm infection. the third stage is severe and may not be treatable. Blood testing and chest X-rays are needed to determine the stage of heartworm infection. the most common heartworm treatment for dogs is the injection of Immiticide, which will kill any adult heartworms that have taken up residence in your dog’s heart. the drug is injected in two sites in the hip area. the first few days after injection, your dog may be lethargic and may have trouble walking. the following four to six weeks are particularly stressful for the dog and owner as the dog must be prevented from playing, running or getting overly excited. the dead heartworms are expelled from the heart in small pieces. if a dog becomes too excited, his heart will pump harder and faster, which can cause the the dead heartworms to travel to the lungs. This can cause respiratory failure. the second stage of heartworm treatment is to kill the heartworm larvae in the dog’s bloodstream. at this point, your vet may allow you to increase your dog’s physical activity to light playing.

Is heartworm the same in cats as it is in dogs?

Diagnosis of heartworms in cats is often difficult and not always 100% reliable. there are several tests that your veterinarian may perform, but there are currently no approved methods to treat heartworm in cats. the available treatments are often dangerous as a single dead worm can cause a blockage of the pulmonary artery. always discuss potential treatment options — and their risks — with your vet. if there are no clinical symptoms, your vet may decide not to treat your cat and wait for it to clear the parasite on her own. Heartworms live for 2 to 3 years in cats. if the cat is displaying symptoms, an anti-inflammatory may be used to lessen the reaction to the worm.

Can humans contract heartworm?

Yes, but not from your dog or cat. Heartworms cannot be spread animal-to-animal — they need a mosquito to complete their life cycle. Humans are not a natural host for heartworm, but there have been a few rare reports of human cases. In humans, the heartworm is usually found as a single worm in the lung versus the heart.

Posted by: Amelia Glynn (Email, Facebook) | June 15 2011 at 01:21 PM

In 1976, a doctor at a small research institute in Menlo Park, California, a tree-lined town outside of San Francisco, did something no one had ever done before.

He took 100 untreatable, terminally ill cancer patients… and he fed them.

He fed them 10 grams of a simple, plentiful nutrient each day.

And they lived.

Not for a few days. Not for a few months…

They averaged living on for nearly a year with no other treatment. Some were still alive almost four years after being diagnosed as terminal.

The doctor compared his 100 with 1,000 other terminally ill patients. they averaged living for only 38 days.

You’ve probably heard the doctor’s name. he was Linus Pauling, and he is still the only man ever to win two unshared Nobel Prizes. and as you probably guessed, the nutrient that kept those people alive was vitamin C.

Most people think of vitamin C in terms of head colds and eating oranges. But vitamin C has an integral relationship with cancer prevention. it can even cause sudden cancer remission. and it all started with Dr. Pauling’s instrumental study…

In fact, Pauling and his colleague, Dr. Ewan Cameron, published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.(1)

But vitamin C is not a drug, and Dr. Pauling did no surgery. All he did was feed people vitamin C both orally and intravenously. So scientists and doctors didn’t believe a word of it.

Pauling and Cameron repeated their study a year and a half later. they used many of the same original hundred people, since they were still alive. But they chose a new set of 1,000 control patients.

And the results got even better.

• Eight of the 100 “terminal” patients were still alive after the second study was finished. their mean survival time after the date of “untreatability” was more than three and a half years.
• Twenty-two of the 100 lived more than a year after they were told they were untreatable… only four of the 1,000 untreated patients did. those 22 survived an average of two-and-a-half years after reaching the apparently terminal stage.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you never heard this story. the modern medical industry that can only stay in business by selling you drugs and surgery doesn’t want you to know about it.

But I do, because I want you to know that cancer is a man-made disease, and because of that, we already have the cure.

In fact right now, there is a pandemic because of a deficiency of this one nutrient. Cancer is the biggest epidemic the world has ever known. and it can be directly linked to the fact that almost no one gets enough vitamin C.

That’s why it saved those cancer patients. and for the most part, it’s also the reason you don’t see cancer in animals as much as you do in people. because every animal on the planet except people, primates, guinea pigs and fruit bats can make their own vitamin C.

In fact, it’s the reason guinea pigs are … well, used as guinea pigs. they can easily be made sick because they don’t make their own vitamin C.

It’s a human weakness that we don’t make it. We need vitamin C to live, and we’re totally dependent on our diet to get it.

Later in this article, I’ll explain how this affects you, how you can protect yourself, and the latest research on how to use vitamin C to prevent cancer and even slow down aging.

But first let me show you something.

Here are some other studies the establishment doesn’t want you to see.

Like the one Cameron did in 1984, which was refused for publication until 1991. in it, Cameron looked at records of over 1,800 incurable cancer patients, and found that those who received any kind of vitamin C supplementation lived twice as ling as those who did not.(2)

And the study from 2006 by the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association. they looked at patients who opted for high-dose vitamin C therapy as their only cancer treatment.

One woman had multiple lesions in her chest, and decided to get injections of 65g twice a week. After 8 months, her chest x-rays were normal. A man with a bladder tumor that had spread into his muscle had the tumor removed. in cases like his, the cancer usually returns in a short time. he opted for high-dose vitamin C injections monthly over four years. and nine years later, he was in good health with no spread of cancer.

Another woman with lymph node cancer did get 5 weeks of radiation therapy, but refused chemotherapy. She had IV vitamin C therapy instead, and over a year later she was in normal health and had no clinical sign of lymphoma. She remains in normal health 10 years after the diagnosis.(3)

How about the study in 1997, published in the journal Prostate? Researchers found that vitamin C caused prostate cancer cells to die.(4)

There was also a study done by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 2009. the study says plainly that an easily-attainable blood level of 2mM of vitamin C killed almost 100% of lymphoma cells in less than a day, and left normal cells alone.

But you won’t see this chart at your doctor’s office, or posted at your community’s hospital.

Because what the modern medical establishment does want you to see are the studies funded by drug companies that show very low doses of vitamin C don’t help cancer patients. Or the ones where patients with a rare colorectal cancer don’t benefit from high doses of orally administered vitamin C.

Because vitamin C is naturally occurring. if something occurs in nature, it can’t be patented. to patent something, you have to prove that you invented or created something exclusive or new.

If a drug company can’t patent a therapy, they can’t corner the market. Other companies are free to produce the same thing at a lower price. Competition drives down prices and profits far below what drug companies are used to.

And what they’re used to is the $11.4 billion Pfizer made in 2009 by selling you a statin drug like Lipitor.

So the big pharmaceutical companies tell you that nutrients are a waste of time.

In fact, that’s what they did for years with omega-3 fish oil… until a drug company found a way to patent a certain process to make it. and now we have an “FDA approved” omega-3 drug called Lovaza.

Thankfully, no one has made a drug out of vitamin C. But it’s more effective at keeping you healthy over the long term than any drug ever could be. and the best part is you don’t have to wait until you’re sick to start using vitamin C.

Stop Cell Damage and Avoid Cancer

Vitamin C works because it is an antioxidant. it disarms molecules called free radicals, which attack healthy cells. Vitamin C does this before the free radicals can induce oxidative damage to your cells, which stimulates tumor growth.

Scientists have known this since the 1980s, but today, we know even more about oxidative damage.

What we now know is that the protective caps on the ends of your DNA, called telomeres, are very sensitive to oxidation. the shorter your telomeres, the older your cells act and the more susceptible they are to becoming cancerous.

The new, exciting discovery about vitamin C is that it’s very effective at slowing down this aging process.

A Japanese study tested vitamin C’s effect on telomeres. it was found that raising the level of vitamin C in the cells could slow down the shortening of telomeres up to 62%.

Another study found that skin cells treated with vitamin C kept their young firm shape because it slowed shortening of the cell DNA’s telomeres. the telomeres also suffered less damage in the presence of vitamin C.(6)

Vitamin C isn’t just “good for you.” it protects your DNA.

How much vitamin C should you get every day?

Let me set the record straight about the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance.

It’s not a speed limit.

The RDA doesn’t mean “don’t take more than this amount.” the RDA is strictly meant to prevent a severe dietary deficiency of a nutrient.

In my experience, it’s not even doing that much. and it certainly is not a recommendation for how much of a nutrient you need so you can function at your best.

For example, the RDA of vitamin C for adults is 90 mg for men and 75 mg for women.

This is not enough to slow telomere shortening or prevent cancer.

Remember I mentioned that almost all animals make their own vitamin C? well, based on what they produce, your body would make between 3,000 mg and 10,000 mg a day if it could – over 100 times more than the RDA!

Dr. Pauling himself took between 12,000 and 18,000 mg a day, and lived to the ripe old age of 93. Based on my own experience, Pauling’s mega-doses aren’t usually necessary. here are three ways to get all the vitamin C you need to feel your best:

1. Food: dark, leafy vegetables, bell peppers, black currants and papaya all have lots of vitamin C. Two common foods with a lot of vitamin C are red and green chili peppers (242 mg per 100 grams), and guava (228 mg). Oranges and strawberries, by contrast, have about 60 mg per 100 grams.

The king of all fruits as far as vitamin C goes is the acerola cherry. they have 1,678 mg per 100 grams – over 20 times the vitamin C of oranges!

2. Herbs: Thyme and parsley are the best sources of vitamin C. you can add them to any soup, stew or salad. Also, a little-known source of vitamin C is peppermint leaves. you can make peppermint tea – just make sure to cover the mug while brewing to keep in the oils.

3. Supplements: Vitamin C is also known as ascorbic acid. Vitamin C is regularly available in stores. An effective dose of vitamin C if you’re currently healthy is 1,500 mg, twice a day.

Pregnant women should get at least 6,000 mg per day. But in times of stress or sickness, you can take up to 20,000 mg. A powdered form may be more convenient for larger doses.

References:

1 Cameron, E. and Pauling, L. “Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 1976. 73:3685-3689.

2 E. Cameron and A. Campbella. “An ‘unpublishable’ clinical trial of supplemental ascorbate in incurable cancer.” Medical Hypotheses, November 1991; Volume 36, Issue 3, Pages 185-189

3 Sebastian J. Padayatty, Hugh D. Riordan, Stephen M. Hewitt, Arie Katz, L. John Hoffer and Mark Levin. “Intravenously administered vitamin C as cancer therapy: three cases.” CMAJ, March 28, 2006; 174 (7).

4 Maramag C, Menon M, Balaji KC, Reddy PG, Laxmanan S. “Effect of vitamin C on prostate cancer cells in vitro: effect on cell number, viability, and DNA synthesis.” Prostate. 1997 Aug 1;32(3):188-95.

5 Furumoto K. et al. “Age-dependent telomere shortening is slowed down by enrichment of intracellular vitamin C via suppression of oxidative stress.” Life Science 1998, vol. 63, no. 11 pp. 935-48

6 Yokoo S, Furumoto K, Hiyama E, Miwa N. “Slow-down of age-dependent telomere shortening is executed … by anti-oxidative effects of pro-vitamin C.” J Cell Biochem. 2004 Oct 15;93(3):588-97.