Lime/Lemon Juice and HIV Prevention
By Patricia Wodi (MD)

The scientific community is constantly searching for a weapon that could be used by women to help prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The ideal weapon would be one controlled by a woman that is also safe, effective and cheap.
About five years ago, the scientific community became interested in the century long practice of using lime or lemon juice for vaginal hygiene and contraception. Their interest was to see if women in developing countries could use lime or lemon juice in the vagina as a way to prevent HIV infection. Lime and lemon juice were considered as potential candidates because they are acidic and acidic environments can kill many infectious agents including HIV.  So, what have they found? Is lime/lemon juice the ideal weapon?

• Lime/ lemon juice can inactivate HIV in laboratories but this depends on the concentration of juice used. Concentrations of juice that are more than 50% are very effective in inactivating HIV. Dilutions that are less than 25% are too weak to inactivate HIV efficiently.
• Current data suggest that at the same concentration, lime juice is probably more effective than lemon juice in inactivating HIV.
• The presence of semen will reduce the acidity of lime/lemon juice therefore making it less effective unless very high concentrations are used.
• Studies on animals have shown little or no damage to the vaginal lining after juice insertion. A damage vaginal lining from any cause increases the risk of getting infected with HIV by making it easier for HIV to get into the body.
• Using juice with greater than 25% concentration can damage the lining of the both human vagina and penis. The greater the concentration of juice used, the more likely damage would occur.
•  When women use undiluted lime juice in their vagina, 7 out of 10 will experience pain as a result of genital irritation and damage.

At least 50% concentration of lime or lemon juice in the vaginal is needed to effectively inactivate HIV. Using this concentration of juice will likely destroy the vagina and increase the potential of getting HIV infection. Using lower concentrations of juice will cause less vagina damage but will less effective killing HIV.

No. Although it is effective in the laboratory, using it in real life at the effective concentration could cause genital injuries that may enhance HIV transmission. Most experts agree women should be discouraged from using these juices in their vagina and the search for other potential weapons (microbicides) should continue. Some other experts are looking at how they can improve the safety profile of these juices.
Until methods are developed to improve their safety profile, do not use lime/lemon juice (particularly undiluted juice) in the vagina. Remember, not every natural substance is safe. 

The Vagina dialogues! Issues with lime
By Steve Aborisade

As discussion continues about the “sensibility” of using lime or lemon as a douching agent and its efficacy as an HIV preventive measure, I think it is an opportunity for us to look at this practice critically especially as it has taken deep roots in our society. It goes beyond Jos and I hope we all know.

It will do us no good to look at it as ‘the white guys are here again’. Can we deny the reality that our women use lime to douche? Not just our women, but the practice has some sort of universal appeal (at least the economist has confirmed that it is beyond ‘the 200 prostitutes surveyed in 2004 in the Nigerian city of Jos, where 163 said they rinsed with lemon or lime juice before or after sex to prevent pregnancy and infections’, but that there is the possibility that the writer’s grandmother may actually have used lime as well). http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3D6849906

It just saddens me that it took the ‘support that the Magdalene project gave a local group in Jos’ to bring our attention to what the writer of the economist article surmised “ The upshot is that, as a microbicide, lime juice is safe when it is ineffective, and effective when it is unsafe. Which leaves the small matter of the women in Jos, and the many others who use similar methods. They need to be told that in seeking protection, they may, in fact, be putting themselves at greater risk”.

Any one who is in doubt about the level of risk that our young ones who has inherited this concept of lime put themselves through to partake of the wonders of this ‘bitter fruit’ will agree that the controversy as it is, is an opportunity for us to educate this teeming population if indeed lime is as defective as claimed. The look that ladies get when they ask for Schweppes (a carbonated lemon drink) especially if a lady is accompanied by a male friend (we buy mostly at kiosks) is a reflection of what we belief that lemon could do. And, this believe is widespread.

Not done with lemon, but I will also like to use this opportunity to draw our attention to another form of interesting dialogue that goes on with the vagina. Believing that a tighter passage way increases sexual pleasure for both, most women has conscripted alum as ally to ensure a tighter vagina wall. I once asked how this works, and I was told to look at what alum does when employed to clean snails. “It tightens and cleans the mess”. This could be another interesting subject of research!

Bitter fruit: another idea for stopping AIDS falls flat"
Date: 27 April 2006
Source: The Economist

Lime juice is famous in medical history. Sailors-particularly British sailors-drank it to keep scurvy at bay. But the past few years have seen another use mooted. This is that, if applied to the vagina, it might protect a woman from HIV infection, and thus from AIDS. On April 24th a group of researchers met at the Microbicides 2006 conference in Cape Town to discuss the matter.

Though a lime-juice douche sounds a ghastly idea, women have been putting acids into their vaginas for millennia, in the hope of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Indeed, cleaning with lime juice is common practice in parts of Africa. Of 200 prostitutes surveyed in 2004 in the Nigerian city of Jos, 163 said they rinsed with lemon or lime juice before or after sex to prevent pregnancy and infections. The question is, are they sensible to do so?

Acids immobilise sperm and kill pathogens, including HIV. (Laboratory studies have shown that a one-in-five dilution of lemon or lime juice inactivated 90% of HIV in just two minutes.) And, in addition to its high citric-acid content, lime juice has a second attractive feature: it literally grows on trees.

However, there is also the matter of the damage that citric acid causes to the vaginal lining. Two studies, one carried out by Carol Lackman-Smith of the Southern Research Institute in Frederick, Maryland, and the other by Christine Mauck of CONRAD (an American contraceptive research and development programme), have shown that anything more concentrated than a one-to-one dilution of lemon juice would damage the cells that line the vagina. Such damage would make it easier, rather than harder, for HIV to get into the bloodstream.

Given the success in the laboratory of a one-in-five dilution, that does not sound an insuperable objection. But there is a second problem. In the bedroom, seminal fluid is also involved in the mix. And seminal fluid is alkaline. The need to overcome this alkalinity means it takes at least a 50% solution of lime juice to inactivate the virus during real sexual intercourse. The upshot is that, as a microbicide, lime juice is safe when it is ineffective, and effective when it is unsafe. Which leaves the small matter of the women in Jos, and the many others who use similar methods. They need to be told that in seeking protection, they may, in fact, be putting themselves at greater risk.

Dear Forum Members,

We welcome the interest in the Mary Magdalene Project which seeks to see if the simple lime or lemon is nature's own microbicide to defend women against HIV infection.

But first one has to use a good broom to sweep away ignorance or sheer laziness.It is for scientific process to determine if indeed the "use of lime juice puts Nigerian women at risk of HIV" because the reality is that there is no such basis for such a wild and unsubstantiated claim.

Rosemary Nnamdi-Okagbue (who describes herself as an "HIV/AIDS consultant") in her (NO 4) posting declared that it was "rather unfortunate" that the Mary Magdalene team "had to come to Nigeria for their trial on humans."

Rosemary...please refer to the www.aids.net.au website..and specifically the www.aids.net.au/lemons-news-mary-magdalene.htm page and you will be able to read for yourself that we did not need "..to come to Nigeria". It is your fellow Nigerians..at work in the Nigerian city of Jos..who are engaged in this project. We are seeking to merely assist! Please do, indeed, take your own advice.."..NACA our coordinating body needs to check this out before things get out of hand." Please do some simple checking of your own, Rosemary. The path is simple, and yor remarks are clearly, and sadly, out of hand..

Chibuike Amaechi (Lagos State Coordinator, Civil Society on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria - CiSHAN) said in Posting response No 5 that it was to be hoped that the participants rights were protected.I can assure Chibuike that not only are the participants rights protected but who else but those associated with them have made any effort whatsoever to concern themselves with the rights of these commercial female sex workers? Chibuike declared that the "interview with Brian" was interesting. But I, Brian, was not involved in any interview.As my posting made it abundantly clear, the interview was between professor Roger Short and the ABC scientist/interviewer Robyn Williams. See how easily facts are muddied...muddled..and distorted.

I urge all eforum readers to refer directly to our website references and see for yourselves.

Your support, as Nigerians, for this Nigerian humanitarian effort would also be welcomed!

Brian Haill
President,
The Australian AIDS Fund Inc.,
PO Box 1347,
Frankston, VIC, 3199
Australia
Email: bhaill@bigpond.net.au
Website: www.aids.net.au

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