Blogs / 80beats

Dosing menopausal women with testosterone may be the key to helping those with low libidos get back in the mood, according to a new study. Proctor & Gamble Pharmaceuticals has published the results of a new trial of their testosterone patch, called Intrinsa, and say the results are encouraging for frustrated older women seeking a “Viagra for women.” However, nagging safety concerns are likely to keep the drug off the market in the United States for some time to come (although the drug is already on sale in Europe): During the new study, four of the test subjects using the patch developed breast cancer.

The 52-week study included 814 women with sexual desire disorder, characterized by troublesome low sexual desire or function…. The women were asked to keep sexual encounter diaries, and researchers used other established measures to assess sexual response during the six-month evaluation phase of the study. They found that compared to placebo users, the women who used the 300 microgram patch reported significant improvements in sexual functioning, including desire, arousal, orgasm, and pleasure [WebMD].

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Three researchers who discovered viruses that cause serious diseases have been awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine, the Nobel Foundation announced today. The prize was awarded jointly to France’s Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, who worked together to identify the HIV virus that causes AIDS, and also to the German scientist Harald zur Hausen who discovered the human papilloma viruses that cause cervical cancer.

Barre-Sinoussi, who is the eighth woman to win the medicine prize since the first Nobel Prizes were handed out in 1901, worked with Montagnier to discover the HIV virus. Shortly after reports in the early 1980s of a new immunodeficiency syndrome, researchers all over the world raced to find the cause. The two [researchers] cultured cells from lymph nodes of patients. They first detected the enzyme reverse transcriptase, which meant that a retrovirus was active. Further searching turned up retroviral particles, which could kill white blood cells and which also reacted with antibodies from infected patients [Scientific American].

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The little blue pills that have given so many men a sexual boost may be of some use to women as well. A small study looked at women whose sex lives had suffered as a side effect of taking antidepressants, and found that Viagra increased their sexual sensation and orgasms.

However, the pills didn’t boost the women’s sex drive, leading some experts to question whether the medication could help most women. “Viagra is not a desire drug. It dilates the blood vessels, allowing intercourse to occur,” said Rutgers University psychology professor Barry R. Komisaruk, an expert on sexual dysfunction. [Sexual health expert Leonard] Derogatis agreed: “The most prevalent female sexual dysfunction is not arousal but desire. Viagra doesn’t have a direct effect on that,” he said [Baltimore Sun].

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In a few years, young women may be offered a genetic test that would gauge their probability of developing breast cancer decades later. The test, which could be a simple mouth swab, could make women who are at high risk more vigilant and could lead them to detect the disease earlier, researchers say. But some doctors warn the results could cause serious psychological stress and would not identify all women at risk [Sydney Morning Herald].

Researchers know that a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer is based on both genetics and lifestyle. Currently, women with a strong family history of breast cancer are offered genetic screenings, but those tests only look for the rare genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, which have long been known to carry a high risk of the disease. The proposed tests, which researchers say are just a few years away, would also look at seven genetic variants… which have been discovered to increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer, particularly if she has certain combinations of them [The Guardian].

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