Lack of sex may lead to early death in women, new study finds

Do it or die.

Women could live longer if they had sex more often – thanks to the heart-healthy benefits of sex, an exciting new study suggests.

The randomized study, recently published in the Journal of Sexual Psychology, found that women aged 20 to 59 who had infrequent sex (less than once a week) had a 70% increased risk of all-cause mortality.

Researchers at Walden University in Minnesota analyzed National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 14,542 U.S. adults aged 20 and over and concluded that enjoying sexual intercourse more than once every seven days is beneficial for women.

“Sexual activity is important for overall cardiovascular health, likely because it reduces heart rate variability and increases blood flow,” the authors wrote.

The research team also found that depression combined with low sexual frequency was also associated with a higher risk of death.

However, the lead author of the study, Dr Srikantha Banerjee, told Daily Mail Australia that depression is much less harmful to sexually active people, especially women.

“In theory, depression affects men differently than women,” he said.

“Depression is a contributing factor to increased mortality because of its impact on health,” he explains. He believes that the endorphins released by sex may be the key to preventing negative health consequences.

“So maybe sex is more effective because depression affects women so badly.”

While women benefit greatly from having more sex, men appear to benefit less from having less sex.

Researchers found that having too much sex could put men six times more likely to die than women.

“This suggests that sexual frequency interacts with sex to increase mortality,” they wrote.

“This means that by addressing sexual frequency, other health disparities can be more directly addressed.”