New research shows that an alarming 70 percent of Americans all have one thing in common: they are infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV) infection.
Fox news reports on this startling finding.
Reports show that over half of the American population has the HPV infection somewhere in their body and many of them are unaware of this.
Fox explains the results from the study, “The most common place to have an HPV infection was the skin — 61 percent of participants had an HPV infection on the skin, followed by 41 percent who had vaginal infections, 30 percent who had mouth infections and 17 percent who had gut infections. Altogether, the researchers found 109 strains of HPV, out of 148 known strains.” A small percentage of these people were found to have the strains that cause cervical cancer.
Dr. Pei from New York University’s pathology center led the study and told Fox, “We don’t want people to be alarmed about the commonness of this infection.” He went on to say that some strains might actually help the immune system in a way.
“More research is needed to better understand how non-cancer causing strains of HPV interact with cancer-causing strains, the researchers said. HPVs are a group of more than 150 related viruses that infect different parts of the body. Most infections go away on their own, but some can linger and lead to health problems, including genital warts and cancer. There are at least a dozen types of HPV linked to cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Previous studies have shown that HPV infections are common. Most people get an HPV infection at some point in their lifetime, and a 2011 study found that, at any given point in time, about 42 percent of women have a genital HPV infection,” according to Fox news.
