Eat your vegetables and fruits, get seven to nine hours of sleep, don’t smoke, walk 30 minutes a day, stand more, stress less, be more mindful. It can be quite an undertaking to arrange and maintain a schedule that promotes health and longevity. And interestingly, the one activity you may not be placing high enough on your “must-do” list is the one that brings you the most pleasure of all: sex. At the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity, Dr. Joel Kahn focuses on overall wellness and has an advanced program for sexual longevity including GAINSwave therape of erectile dysfunction.
Why Does Sexual Health Matter for the Heart?
There’s a wealth of medical data indicating that intercourse and orgasm not only maintain the lineage of our species, but they maintain our health in the years after childbearing. Here are 5 benefits of sex that are science based.
- Reduced Heart Attack Risk. None other than the Harvard Health Letter declared that “Sex is important to health. It revs up metabolism and may boost the immune system. Frequent sexual intercourse is associated with reduced heart attack risk.” But if that is true, why don’t doctors write “more sex” on a prescription pad at preventive care visits?
- Longevity. In a research project called the Massachusetts Male Aging Study, there was nearly a 50 percent increased risk of developing heart disease in men who had sex once a month or less compared with the group that had two or more weekly sessions, which would translate to about 100 times a year. In another study, over 900 men in Wales were followed for 10 years; the risk of dying was reduced 50 percent in those with high orgasm frequency versus low. If a participant had eight sexual episodes monthly, the death rate was reduced by 36 percent, but the more sex participants had, the more the death rate dropped. This is called a dose-response curve, and very few “more traditional” medical therapies can boast lifesaving numbers like these.
- Lower Homocysteine. In a recently published research analysis, frequency of sexual activity corresponded with better cognitive function in older adults. Memory, executive function, and verbal fluency were all better with more frequent sex in males and females. In another study just published, sexual frequency in over 2,000 men and women was inversely correlated to the blood concentration of an amino acid adverse to heart health called homocysteine. The frequency with which the person engaged in sex, the lower and more favorable their homocysteine levels were.
- Increase testosterone. Higher testosterone levels are associated with longevity and 0ne theory for males is that testosterone levels increase during intercourse with a partner (not necessarily during masturbation). Unfortunately, less medical data is available on the role of sexual frequency in female health, but there is plenty of reason to believe the advantages are much the same.
- Reduced risk of prostate cancer. A study analyzed by Harvard researchers correlated the frequency of ejaculation with prostate health. They discovered that the lowest rates of prostate cancer were found in those who ejaculated often — specifically, more than 21 times a month.
Clearly, one of the best paths to health is to view sex as healthy and a health promoting activity. Schedule it on your calendar along with trips to a farmer’s market and the gym. When Marvin Gaye sang “Sexual Healing” he was right on the mark.
About Dr. Joel Kahn
At his core, Dr. Joel Kahn believes that plant-based nutrition is the most powerful source of preventative medicine on the planet. Having practiced traditional cardiology since 1983, it was only after his own commitment to a plant based vegan diet that he truly began to delve into the realm of non-traditional diagnostic tools, prevention tactics and nutrition-based recovery protocols.
