Sex and death: are they related? Findings from the Caerphilly Cohort Study.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective cohort study with 10-year follow-up.
PubMed 9448525 · doi:10.1136/bmj.315.7123.1641
What was done
A prospective cohort study (Caerphilly Cohort Study) evaluated the relation between orgasm frequency and mortality. The study followed 918 men aged 45–59 years recruited between 1979 and 1983 from Caerphilly, South Wales, and five adjacent villages for 10 years. Outcomes assessed were all-cause mortality and deaths from coronary heart disease.
What was found
Mortality risk was 50% lower in the high orgasmic frequency group compared to the low orgasmic frequency group, demonstrating a dose-response relation. The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) for all-cause mortality was 2.0 (95% CI 1.1 to 3.5; trend p = 0.02) for the low-frequency group, which remained 1.9 (95% CI 1.0 to 3.4; trend p = 0.04) after adjusting for risk factors. An increase of 100 orgasms per year was associated with an OR of 0.64 (95% CI 0.44 to 0.95) for total mortality. Similar inverse associations were observed for coronary heart disease deaths and other causes.
Why it matters
This paper identifies a prospective, dose-dependent inverse association between frequency of sexual activity and long-term mortality in middle-aged men.
Limits
The sample was restricted to middle-aged men from a single geographic region in South Wales, limiting generalizability to women and other populations. As an observational cohort study, reverse causality and residual confounding (such as baseline overall health driving sexual frequency) cannot be excluded.
Cited by
- partial A 1997 study showed that for every 100 orgasms men had, they experienced a 13% increase in life expectancy.