Frequent Sex: Good for More Than Baby-Making

The Scoop

According to a January 7, 2010, health report from CNN, several recent studies show that people who have frequent sex tend to live longer, have healthier hearts, and have lower rates of certain cancers.

Combing through research on the beneficial effects of sexual intercourse and male and female health, the report noted the following findings:

• In a British study, men who had intercourse at least twice a week lived longer than men who had sex less than once a month.
• In another study from the UK, men and women who had intercourse twice a week or more were less likely to have heart attacks and other fatal coronary events.
• A soon-to-published article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine finds that more sexually active people have less dramatic blood pressure spikes when put under stress.
• A French study noted that women who had vaginal intercourse not at all or infrequently had three times the risk of breast cancer, compared with women who had intercourse more often.
• Several studies suggest that more sexual activity helps relieve lower back pain and migraines.

When you read about the benefits of sex, "you can't help but say...sexual activity is a very important thing to do. Human beings were really meant to do this," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, in an interview with CNN.

Your Fertility

Frequent sex, of course, can also benefit fertility. Recent studies have found that men who had frequent intercourse had a higher volume of semen, a higher sperm count, and a higher percentage of healthier sperm than men.

In other research, men being treated for erectile problems saw greater increases in testosterone when, along with the treatments, they had frequent sex. According to the CNN report, men who had intercourse at least eight times per month had greater increases in their testosterone levels than those who had sex less than eight times per month.