Sex and death: are they related? Findings from the Caerphilly cohort study

BMJ 1997;315:1641-1644 (20 December)

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Sex and death: are they related? Findings from the Caerphilly cohort study

George Davey Smith, professor of clinical epidemiology,^a Stephen Frankel, professor of epidemiology and public health medicine,^a John Yarnell, senior lecturer ^b

^a Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 2PR, ^b Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast BT12 6BJ

Correspondence to: Professor Davey Smith zetkin@bristol.ac.uk

Objective: To examine the relation between frequency of orgasmand mortality.
Study design: Cohort study with a 10 year follow up.
Setting: The town of Caerphilly, South Wales, and five adjacentvillages.
Subjects: 918 men aged 45-59 at time of recruitment between1979 and 1983.
Main outcome measures: All deaths and deaths from coronaryheart disease.
Result: Mortality risk was 50% lower in the group with highorgasmic frequency than in the group with low orgasmic frequency,with evidence of a dose-response relation across the groups.Age adjusted odds ratio for all cause mortality was 2.0 forthe group with low frequency of orgasm (95% confidence interval1.1 to 3.5, test for trend P=0.02). With adjustment for riskfactors this became 1.9 (1.0 to 3.4, test for trend P=0.04).Death from coronary heart disease and from other causes showedsimilar associations with frequency of orgasm, although thegradient was most marked for deaths from coronary heart disease.Analysed in terms of actual frequency of orgasm, the odds ratiofor total mortality associated with an increase in 100 orgasmsper year was 0.64 (0.44 to 0.95).
Conclusion: Sexual activity seems to have a protective effecton men's health.

Key messages

Sex and death are common variables in epidemiology, but the relation between them has been little studied
In this cohort study, mortality risk was 50% lower in men with high frequency of orgasm than in men with low frequency of orgasm; there was evidence of a dose-response relation across the groups
The question of causation is complex, as with all observational epidemiological findings; several explanations are possible, but the evidence for causation is as convincing here as in many areas where causation is assumed
These findings contrast with the view common to many cultures that the pleasure of sexual intercourse may be secured at the cost of vigour and wellbeing
If these findings are replicated, there are implications for health promotion programmes

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Relevant Article

Are sex and death related?: David Batty, Agnes Ayton, and George Davey Smith
BMJ 1998 316: 1671. [Extract] [Full Text]

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