Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bangkok Post - August 12, 2002
Apiradee Treerutkuarkul
Roger V Short, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Melbourne, said a team of scientists had just completed initial experiments in test tubes.
Testing on primates and then humans would be needed to see if women really could rely on lemon juice to protect themselves against pregnancy and the HIV/Aids virus. "We need more time to study whether lemon juice can kill sperm and the HIV/Aids virus in the human body without any side effect," he said. The seven-month lab test showed promising results. Half a teaspoon of lemon juice could destroy four parts, or two teaspoons, of spermatozoa in less than 30 seconds.
It could also kill the HIV/Aids virus within a few minutes.
According to the book "Medical History of Contraception" Mediterranean women traditionally used lemon juice, or placed a slice of lemon in the vagina, as a spermicide. It was also known the HIV virus dies in a low pH environment.
So fresh lemon juice might be an effective spermicide and virucide because it has a pH level of 2.2-2.6 , he said.
Mr Short said using lemon juice would not irritate sexual organs. Both he and women researchers on his staff had tried it out on themselves. He had also met 15 women in their eighties who for many years had used half a lemon as a contraceptive. "All of them say lemon juice is all right."
With funding support from VicHealth, an Australian government agency, he would begin experiments using lemon juice on macaque monkeys on Bogor Island, Indonesia, next month.
Research on humans would be undertaken among young women in Asia and South Africa after that. The study would look at whether lemon juice could kill all the virus present in the semen of an HIV-positive man, he said.
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