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Lemon douches for HIV prevention

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[edit] PLEASE NOTE: New research (September 2007) raises safety and efficacy concerns.

"Lime juice up to 20% concentration has an acceptable safety profile for vaginal use. However, as new in vitro research shows that the effectiveness of lime juice to prevent HIV transmission in concentrations lower than >or=50% is unlikely and concentrations of 50% have been shown to be toxic, women should be discouraged from commencing or continuing the vaginal use of lime juice"[1] See talk page for further discussion.


[edit] Problem

"There are estimated to be 5 million new HIV infections per year with more women than men now becoming infected. This highlights the desperate need for a cheap, readily available, female controlled microbicide."

[edit] Summary

Lemon juice is a known spermicide. It also inactivates the HIV virus in vitro. "Intravaginal lemon juice applied prior to intercourse has been used as a contraceptive by women around the Mediterranean for more than 300 years. We have confirmed the contraceptive properties of lemon juice by showing that a 20% final concentration of lemon juice in fresh human ejaculate irreversibly immobilises 100% of sperm in under 30 seconds. Even today, intravaginal lemon and lime juice douches are used by women in Nigeria to protect themselves from pregnancy and supposedly from sexually transmitted infections. Lime or lemon juice added to cultures of HIV has the ability to inactivate the virus." [2]


[edit] Developers

Anke Hemmerling, Roger Short

[edit] External Links

http://www.aids.net.au/lemons-news.htm

Reprod Fertil Dev. 2004;16(5):555-9. The HIV/AIDS pandemic: new ways of preventing infection in men. Short RV.

Sex Health. 2005;2(4):237-9. Use of lemon or lime juice douches in women in Jos, Nigeria. Imade GE, Sagay AS, Onwuliri VA, Egah DZ, Potts M, Short RV.

Microbicides for sexually transmittted diseasesW

[edit] References

  1. ↑ Hemmerling A, et. al. Lime juice as a candidate microbicide? An open-label safety trial of 10% and 20% lime juice used vaginally. J Womens Health. 2007 Sep;16(7):1041-51.)
  2. ↑ Lemon and Lime juice as potent natural microbicides Roger Short, 2,3Scott G. McCoombe, Clare Maslin, Eman Naimand Suzanne Crowe.
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