All About Genital Warts: Way More Than You Want to Know

Several experiences in my young adulthood made it clear to me that I was not cut out to be a doctor. Once I passed out as I was observing brain surgery. Another time I passed out as the pathologist literally ripped the heart out of a cadaver during autopsy and splashed formaldehyde on his lunch, set on the corner of the autopsy table. And there was the Saturday night I was observing in the emergency room when a man came in with profuse bleeding, after an act of unfulfilled intimacy in which another person (there were certain details the attending physician simply did not ask) had crushed his genital warts.

We don’t usually talk about genital warts, but they can be far more than a cosmetic problem. Genital warts, also known as condyloma acuminatum, are the result of infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV). Genital warts are among the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. The American Social Health Association claims that approximately 5.5 million newly diagnosed cases of sexually transmitted herpesvirus infections are reported every year. And no fewer than 20 million Americans are probably already infected.

Medical treatment of genital warts consists of several unpleasant treatment options. Condyloma are removed by application of liquid nitrogen, burning with electricity, surgical excision or laser ablation, or the application of 5-fluouracil (5-FU), a chemical more typically used in chemotherapy for cancer. All of these approaches are painful. None of these approaches guarantees warts will not reappear. It is unusual for genital warts to resolve without these treatments. When they do, it is the result of cell-mediated immunity, that is, the activation of white blood cells to engulf and digest HPV-infected skin cells.

Beta-carotene is especially important for women who have been exposed to HPV. One study found that women who develop cervical dysplasia have an average of about 2/3 as much beta-carotene in their bloodstreams (13.9 micrograms per deciliter compared to 21.3 micrograms per deciliter) as healthy women. Carotenes enhance the activity of the immune system in both men and women, and ensure the normal adhesion of skin cells to each other. Since genital warts are a result of skin cells “coming loose” from the basement membrane, beta-carotene may protect against their formation.

How do you get beta-carotene in food? There are literally dozens of meals that provide for the body’s ongoing needs. Here are just a few. These dishes also provide significant quantities of olic acid and vitamin B12 that together are necessary for normal responses of white blood cells to viral challenges. Since you are maximizing for alpha- and beta-carotene, and not vitamin A, it is not critical that your carotene foods be combined with fat.