Studies have shown that men who have sex or ejaculate more often are healthier.
A US study suggested that men who ejaculate often may have a lower risk of prostate cancer than their peers who don’t do it as frequently.
The study started in 1992 and continued all the way to 2010, having about 32,000 men participating in the research. During this period, almost 4,000 of the men were diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The study found that men who ejaculated at least 21 times a month in their 20s were 19 per cent less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than men who ejaculated no more than seven times a month. Men who ejaculated more often in their 40s were 22 per cent less likely to get a prostate cancer diagnosis. Now that’s a lot of sex or jerking off!
“Ejaculation frequency is, to some extent, a measure of overall health status in that men at the very low end of ejaculation — zero to three times per month — were more likely to have other (medical problems) and die prematurely from causes other than prostate cancer,” said lead study author Jennifer Rider, who did the analysis while working at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
“While our findings should be confirmed in studies that evaluate the potential biological mechanisms underlying the observed associations, the results of our study suggest that ejaculation and safe sexual activity throughout adulthood could be a beneficial strategy for reducing the risk of prostate cancer,” Rider said.
Prostate cancer accounts for 15 per cent of all new cancer diagnoses worldwide. Established risk factors like age, race and family history are not “modifiable,” but there are few lifestyle changes that can be recommended to men to lower risk.
To understand the connection between ejaculation frequency and cancer, Rider and colleagues reviewed data from questionnaires men completed about sexual health and examined medical records and lab tests to verify which participants were diagnosed with prostate tumours.
During the study period, there were 192 cases of prostate cancer among men who ejaculated no more than three times a month. There were 1,041 cases with 4 to 7 ejaculations a month, and 1,509 cases with 8 to 12 monthly ejaculations, another 807 cases with 13 to 20 ejaculations a month and 290 cases with at least 21 monthly ejaculations.
Frequent ejaculation through sex or masturbation probably results from other factors that contribute to good health, such as a healthy diet and normal weight, which might also lower the risk of cancer, said Dr John Gore, a urology researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle who wasn’t involved in the study.
“I do not think we need to tell men ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it,’” Gore said by email.
So guys, you know what to do 😉
