Better Health: More Frequent And Better Quality Sex In Later Life

Editor's Choice
Main Category: Sexual Health / STDs
Also Included In: Seniors / Aging
Article Date: 10 Mar 2010 - 0:00 PDT

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Research published on bmj.com today reports that people who are in good health are just about twice as likely to be interested in sex compared to those in poor health.

Sexual activity is recognized as having several health benefits. In addition, it is linked to living longer. In this case, the study investigates how general health impacts on the quality of sex.

Furthermore, this research estimates how many remaining sexually active years healthy men and women have left.

Findings indicate that at the age of 30, sexually active life expectancy is:

• For men: nearly 35 years
• For women: almost 31 years

At the age of 55, this figure changes to:

• For men: almost 15 remaining years
• For women: 10 remaining years

This gender difference diminishes for people with a spouse or intimate partner.

Sexually active life expectancy was longer for men. However, they lost more years of this activity due to poor health than women.

Authors, Stacy Tessler Lindau and Natalia Gavrilova from the University of Chicago, used data from two representative research groups in the US. One group consisted of over 3,000 men and women between the ages of 25 and 74. The other group included over 3,000 men and women between 57 and 85 years of age.

Participants were asked to provide information about their relationship status. They rated the quality of their sex lives and how often they had sex. They also rated the level of their general health between poor and excellent.

The results disclose that men are more likely to be sexually active, report a good sex life and be interested in sex than women. This dissimilarity was most considerable among the 75 to 85 year old group, where almost four out of ten (40 percent) males compared to less than two out of ten (17 percent) women were sexually active.

The authors write in conclusion:"sexually active life expectancy estimation is a new life expectancy tool than can be used for projecting public health and patient needs in the arena of sexual health" and that "projecting the population patterns of later life sexual activity is useful for anticipating need for public health resources, expertise and medical services."

In an associated editorial, Professor Patricia Goodson from Texas University says Lindau and Gavrilova's research is both interesting and encouraging. She writes: "the study bears good news in the form of hope ... the news that adults in the US can enjoy many years of sexual activity beyond age 55 is promising."

Goodson remarks that in the field of older people and sexuality, many questions remain unanswered, such as problems with measurement and silence regarding the sexual health of ageing homosexual, bisexual or intersexed people. "They stand as dim reminders of the limitations inherent in applying science to the study of complex human realities, and the cultural values shaping the topics we choose to study, she concludes."

"Sex, health, and years of sexually active life gained due to good health: evidence from two US population based cross sectional surveys of aging"
Stacy Tessler Lindau, associate professor, Natalia Gavrilova, senior research associate
BMJ 2010; 340:c810
doi:10.1136/bmj.c810

"Sexual activity in middle to later life"
Patricia Goodson
BMJ 2010;340:c850
bmj.com

Written by Stephanie Brunner (B.A.)
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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