Men's health

Circumcision, Jews got it right, for health and safety

Men who are circumcised may have a significantly reduced risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease compared with those who are not, a New Zealand study has found.

Researchers followed 510 boys born in 1977, giving them frequent medical examinations until they were 25. Thirty percent of them had been circumcised by age 15. A little less than 3 percent reported a sexually transmitted disease at age 21, and an additional 6.6 percent reported one at 25.

After statistically adjusting for family education, socioeconomic status, number of partners and self-reported unprotected sex, researchers concluded that the odds of acquiring a subsequent STD were 3.19 times higher for men who were uncircumcised. The study was published in Pediatrics.

David M. Fergusson, professor of medical psychology at Christchurch School of Medicine, warned that the results were not conclusive. “We are cautious about the findings,” he said. “They depend on self-reports, and not all studies agree with ours. But our results definitely suggest that circumcision may reduce rates of STDs.”

Fergusson declined to offer advice to parents. “Decisions to circumcise children should not be made on the basis of one study,” he said.

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