Women who have sex at least once a month have a lower risk of early menopause than those with less active sex lives, says a new study.
The data concluded that women who said they had sexual activity weekly or more frequently were 28% less likely to have experienced menopause at any given age than women who said they had sex less than once a month.
But don’t worry if you’re single, or not getting any action on the regular, ‘sexual activity’ includes sexual touching and self-stimulation as well as intercourse and oral sex.
The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, looked at data from 3,000 women in the United States, and researches said the findings support he theory that human menopause originally evolved to reduce reproductive conflict between generations of females.
It also suggests that one purpose of menopause is to allow older women to increase their fitness through investing in their grandchildren.
‘If a woman is not having sex, and there is no chance of pregnancy, then the body ‘chooses’ not to invest in ovulation, as it would be pointless,’ said Megan Arnot, a PhD candidate at University College London (UCL) who co-led the research.
Arnot added that it would be pointlessly costly for the body to invest energy in the ovulation process if a women is having little or no sex and is therefore unlikely to get pregnant.
So, the body diverts energy resources into protecting and caring for existing offspring.
But this doesn’t mean that getting freaky every day will stave off the menopause forever.
‘The menopause is, of course, an inevitability for women, and there is no behavioral intervention that will prevent reproductive cessation,’ said Ruth Mace, a professor of anthropology at UCL who also worked on the study.
‘Nonetheless, these results are an initial indication that menopause timing may be adaptive in response to the likelihood of becoming pregnant.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/15/women-sex-lower-risk-early-menopause-12060207/
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