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THURSDAY, April 10 (HealthDay News) -- Sexual dissatisfaction in postmenopausal women isn't associated with cardiovascular disease, say U.S. researchers.

It's known that sexual dysfunction in some men is predictive of cardiovascular disease but this association has never been examined in women.

In this study, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) analyzed data collected from more than 93,000 sexually active postmenopausal women, aged 50 to 79, in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study.

The women, recruited at 40 clinical centers across the United States, were followed for eight to 12 years. They were classified as either sexually satisfied or dissatisfied based on their responses to a baseline survey.

The researchers looked for information about cardiovascular disease -- acute myocardial infarction, stroke or coronary revascularization procedure -- and related cardiovascular problems such as congestive heart failure, peripheral artery disease and angina.

The study did find a modest association between sexual dissatisfaction and having peripheral artery disease. It also found that women who were sexually dissatisfied had a lower rate of angina. However, the researchers found no association between sexual dissatisfaction and any other form of cardiovascular disease.

The study was published in the April issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

"In men, erectile dysfunction is a manifestation of cardiovascular disease and can predict the development of adverse cardiovascular outcomes such as heart attack," researcher Dr. Jennifer McCall-Hosenfeld, a fellow in the department of general internal medicine at BMC and Women's Health at BUSM, said in a prepared statement.

"In our study, we used decreased sexual satisfaction as a rough proxy measure for sexual dysfunction and controlled for lifestyle issues and other factors that might impact sexual satisfaction. We did not find that sexual satisfaction predicted cardiovascular disease in the future," she said.

More information

The U.S. National Women's Health Information Center has more about heart disease.

TUESDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise does a body good -- two bodies when the one exercising is a pregnant woman.

A new study shows that when a mom-to-be works out, her fetus reaps cardiac benefits. The benefits show up as lower fetal heart rates, according to the finding to be presented this week at the Experimental Biology 2008 annual meeting in San Diego.

"This study suggests that a mother who exercises may not only be imparting health benefits to her own heart, but to her developing baby's heart as well. As a result of this pilot study, we plan to continue the study to include more pregnant women," study co-author Linda E. May, of the Department of Anatomy at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, said in a prepared statement.

Ten women participated in the study, half of whom were exercisers and the other half who weren't. Fetal movements such as breathing, body and mouth movements were monitored and recorded from 24 weeks into pregnancy to term.

The researchers found significantly lower heart rates among fetuses that had been exposed to maternal exercise throughout the study period. The heart rates among the fetuses not exposed to exercise were higher, regardless of the fetal activity or the gestational age.

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has more about prenatal care.

FRIDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- Your risk of developing tongue cancer increases if you have severe gum disease along with human papillomavirus (HPV), new research suggests.

Previous studies have found periodontitis, which destroys connective tissue and bone supporting the teeth, and HPV each pose increased risks of cancer in the head, neck or tongue. This new study, from researchers at the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine, shows the two may work in tandem.

In a study of 30 patients newly diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma on the base of the tongue, 63 percent (19 patients) had tumors testing positive for a common type of HPV. In addition, 90 percent of the patients with HPV-positive tumors had periodontitis, and 79 percent of patients whose tumors showed no presence of HPV did not have periodontitis.

"Evidence of periodontitis-HPV synergy has important practical implications, because there is a safe treatment for periodontitis but no treatment for HPV infection," Mine Tezal, an assistant professor in the dental school's Department of Oral Diagnostic Sciences, said in a prepared statement. "If these results are confirmed by other studies, this has a tremendous relevance in predicting and intervening in the initiation and prognosis of HPV-related diseases, including head and neck cancers."

Tezal, who is also a research scientist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, is scheduled to present the finding Friday at the American Association of Dental Research annual meeting, in Dallas.

Most people contract HPV infection at least once in their lives, but one's immune system often fights it off without incident.

"Persistence of HPV infection is the strongest risk factor for carcinogenesis," Tezal said. "Thus, the identification of factors that influence the persistence of HPV infection is critical to facilitate efforts to prevent head and neck cancers. This study implicates that chronic inflammation and co-infection with oral bacteria may be significant factors in the natural history of HPV infection."

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about oral cancer.

TUESDAY, April 1 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. researchers say they've discovered how HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- hides in human cells to avoid being destroyed by the body's immune cells.

They explained that when a normal virus, such as the common cold, infects a person, the immune system responds and produces cells that quickly eliminate the virus. However, HIV makes itself appear as part of the normal trash in a cell, rather than being clearly visible on the cell surface.

"HIV can make a protein called Nef, which helps the virus hide," researcher Dr. Kathleen Collins, an associate professor at the University of Michigan, said in a prepared statement.

"Nef interferes with one important part of our defenses, which helps our immune system recognize infected cells, by displaying pieces of the infecting virus or bacteria on the cell surface, forming a target for our bodies' killer cells. When HIV infects one of our cells, the protein Nef binds to this helper system and alters it in such a way that the cell believes it belongs in the cellular trash bin rather than on the surface where our main defenses can see it," she said.

Collins added that the Nef protein recruits other proteins naturally made by cells to help HIV hide from immune cells. She and her colleagues identified these natural proteins and developed inhibitors that block their actions and reverse the activity of Nef. This may help the immune system to detect and destroy HIV.

"We are currently screening a whole range of substances, looking for small molecule inhibitors which could be developed into drugs to provide better therapies for people with HIV and AIDS," Collins said.

"We have discovered that Nef takes on notably different shapes and structural forms in different contexts, which allows it to reveal or obscure different traffic signals within the infected cell as needed. Once we have a better understanding of the surfaces and shapes involved in these interactions, we will be in a better position to develop medicines which may someday help to combat AIDS."

The research was to be presented April 1 at the Society for General Microbiology annual meeting, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about HIV/AIDS.