Women who rarely have sex may not only be suffering from pent-up tension, but may also be at risk of premature death, a new study has found.
Scientists found that women between the ages of 20 and 59 who had sex less than once a week were 70 percent more likely to die from any cause within five years, compared to women who had sex more than once a week.
These individuals had elevated levels of a protein linked to inflammation, which can damage healthy cells, tissues and organs.
The study also included a sample of men, but researchers told DailyMail.com that ‘the association was not found in men.’
Scientists found that women aged 20 to 59 with a ‘low sexual frequency’ had a 70 percent higher risk of death
The team concluded that ‘there are benefits for women to have sex more than once per week.’
The study authors, medical researchers at Walden University in Pennsylvania, used a massive database from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for their new research.
Data from a national survey, including information on depression, obesity, ethnicity, and reports of sexual activity of For this analysis, 14,542 men and women were pooled.
The answers to the question: ‘How often have you had vaginal or anal sex in the past 12 months?’ are also included in the database.
The options include: never, once, two to eleven times, 12 to 51 times, 52 to 103 times, 104 to 364 times, and 365 times or more in the past 12 months.
The reports found that about 95 percent of participants had sex more than 12 times a year, and 38 percent had it once a week or more.
The team then compared this medical information to another CDC database of deaths through the end of 2015, double-checking this data against death certificates from the US National Death Index (NDI) for those years.
“Participants who were not linked to death certificates were considered alive throughout the follow-up period,” the team said in their study, published in the journal for psychosexual health.
Some of the data showed that the risk of death increased by as much as 197 percent in people who reported having little sex and being depressed, compared with people who were only depressed.
Above are comparisons of the increased risk of death based on lack of sex without excluding other variables (Sex Freq- Crude HR*), next to ‘high level of sex, plus depression’, and on the far right ‘lack of sex, plus depression’ (Sex Freq-//Dep+ aHR*) – the most dangerous category
‘People with depression who have a lot of sex experience fewer harmful effects of the depression,’ lead researcher Dr Srikanta Banerjee told DailyMail.com.
But this finding was also gender neutral, he noted: “What we found is that there is only a beneficial effect in women.”
“The theory,” Dr. Banerjee explained, “is that depression affects men differently than it affects women.”
“Depression is something that leads to higher mortality because of health outcomes,” the former CDC researcher said. “So maybe sex is more effective because of the severity of the impact of depression on women.”
“There are several theories,” Dr. Banerjee noted about this apparent connection.
‘For example, sex releases endorphins, which can prevent serious health problems.’
But regardless of race, gender, age and most other health factors, his team stressed that relatively regular sex appears to be beneficial for most adults.
“Sexual activity is important for overall cardiovascular health, possibly because of the reduction in heart rate variability and increase in blood flow,” the researchers noted.
But the new research has another interesting caveat for oversexed men: There really is too much of a good thing.
“At high sexual frequency,” the researchers wrote, “men were six times more likely to have higher mortality than women.”
This six-fold increase in mortality risk for men who actually “move around” was found to be true despite the study’s use of multiple complex statistical weights, including Cox regression models, to neutralize other health, behavioral, and demographic factors.
“This shows that the frequency of sexuality is associated with gender and increases mortality,” the researchers conclude in their study.
‘The implication is that by addressing the frequency of sex, other health disparities can be addressed more directly.’
