Men who have more orgasms live longer, a study of Welsh villagers revealed yesterday. Researchers plotted the sex lives of almost 1,000 men aged between 45 and 49, then checked their mortality statistics a decade later.
The epidemiologists from Belfast and Bristol universities offered the good news in weighty scientific language: "Mortality risk was 50 per cent lower in the group with high orgasmic frequency than in the group with low orgasmic frequency." Prof George Davey Smith and his team concluded: "Sexual activity seems to have a protective effect on men's health."
The researchers, whose findings were published in the British Medical Journal, light-heartedly suggested that healthy living promotional campaigns could now be given a sparkling new zest. "Intervention programmes could be considered, perhaps based on the exciting `at least five a day' campaign aimed at increasing fruit and vegetable consumption - although the numerical imperative may have to be adjusted," they said.
The epidemiologists concluded: "The disappointing results observed in health-promotion programmes in other domains may not be seen when potentially pleasurable activities are promoted."
The researchers from the University of Bristol and Queen's University in Belfast disputed the findings of cultures who argued that sexual abstinence put men on a higher mental plain.
They noted that the Huli people of Papua New Guinea sent their young men to secret bachelor hideouts in the jungle where they were "taught by celibate specialists of the mortal dangers of succumbing to women's desires". "In North India, any loss of semen is considered to be debilitating," they said.
Fellow scientists Mr Matthew Hotopf and Mr Simon Wessely congratulated the researchers, forecasting: "As you read this, we confidently predict that `Sex Makes You Live Longer' will occupy more newspaper inches over the holiday period than Queen Elizabeth's [televised] speech to the nation."