Apparently, February 11 was the Sex issue for the LA Times, or something like that.
Regarding the study below: All's I can say is that I'm impressed by the fact that they seem to actually have a fair number of fearless volunteers. I would think that volunteers for this type of study are incredibly difficult to find, even with as many people as we have in this country.
AS they seek to document and demystify one of life's great thrills, scientists have run across some real head-scratchers.
How, for example, can they explain the fact that some men and women who are paralyzed and numb below the waist are able to have orgasms? How to explain the "orgasmic auras" that can descend at the onset of epileptic seizures -- sensations so pleasurable they prompt some patients to refuse antiseizure medication? And how on Earth to explain the case of the amputee who felt his orgasms centered in that missing foot?
No one -- no sexologist, no neuroscientist -- really knows. For a subject with so many armchair experts, the human orgasm is remarkably mysterious.
But today, a few scientists are making real progress -- in part because they're changing their focus. To uncover the orgasm's secrets, researchers are looking beyond the clitoris, vagina, penis and prostate, to the place behind the scenes where the true magic happens. They're examining the central nervous system: the network of electrical impulses that zip to and fro through the brain and spinal cord.
In an orgasm orchestra, the genitalia may be the instruments, but the central nervous system is the conductor.
Armed with new lab tools and fearless volunteers, scientists are getting first-ever glimpses of how the brain lights up (and, in places, shuts down) when the orgasmic fireworks go off. They're tracing nerves and finding new pathways for pleasure that help explain how people with shattered spinal cords can defy sexual expectations....
Benefits 'O'-verall"
By Regina Nuzzo, Special to The Times
February 11, 2008
Sure, orgasms can put a bounce in one's step, but some studies hint they might also be good for one's health.
* Heart: Lots of studies have looked at whether DHEA, a hormone released into the bloodstream during arousal and orgasm, helps keeps arteries clear and hearts strong. A 2001 study of 1,700 middle-age Massachusetts men found that those with the lowest levels of DHEA were about 60% more likely to develop heart disease than those with the highest. Orgasms aren't the only way to get this hormone, though; your body produces some even without sexual stimulation.
* Breast: Oxytocin -- a hormone released during sexual arousal, orgasm and breast-feeding -- has been linked to reduced risk of breast cancer. And not just for women: A small, 2000 study of 23 Greek men found that those with breast cancer tended to have a history of fewer orgasms than did healthy men in the control group. One 1995 study speculated that the hormone helps flush out carcinogens from breast fluid.
* Prostate: Two large studies, reported in 2003 and 2004, found that middle-aged men who had (or at least remember having) at least four orgasms a week throughout their 20s, 30s and 40s had a reduced risk of prostate cancer by as much as one-third. Some researchers speculate that ejaculations may clear the prostate of carcinogens....
What I'd like to know about the above studies, frankly, is how many of them measure the benefits of orgasm versus which ones measure the benefits of intercourse. I don't remember where I saw it, but I have a vague memory that the oxytocin study is specific to intercourse, that masturbation doesn't produce quite the same benefits, although it did produce some. That could be an entirely false memory, though.
Posted by iain at February 13, 2008 10:48 AM
