Why Do Hormones
in Semen Make Women Feel Good?
Wed Jun 26, 2002 2:09 PM ET
Hormones in semen may help to ease female depression... regardless
of how they are exposed to it.
LONDON (Reuter) - Hormones in semen may help to ease female depression
because women whose partners don't use condoms are less likely to feel
down.
Scientists at the State University of New York suspect the
mood-altering hormones are absorbed through the vagina and make women feel
good but they stressed that their results are not an excuse for
unprotected sex.
"I want to make it clear that we are not advocating that people abstain
from using condoms," Gordon Gallup, who led the study, told New Scientist
magazine on Wednesday.
"Clearly an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease would
more than offset any advantageous psychological effects of semen," he
added.
The researchers assessed the moods of 300 female students using a
standard questionnaire. A score of more than 17 was considered moderately
depressed.
Women whose partners never used condoms scored about eight on the test
while those who never had sex without condoms scored 11.3. Women who
weren't having sex at all scored about 13.5.
Depression in the students who sometimes or never used condoms was more
severe the longer they went without sex.
The scientists said they looked at other factors, such as the use of
oral contraceptives, frequency of sex and personality type, but found that
none could account for the findings.
The magazine said the results are not a complete surprise because
scientists know that semen contains several mood-altering hormones
including testosterone.
"Some of these have been detected in a woman's blood within hours of
exposure to semen," the magazine said.
The scientists suspect semen will have the same effect on women
regardless of how they are exposed to it.
Source:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/
Semen acts as an anti-depressant
19:00 26 June 02
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Semen makes you happy. That's the remarkable conclusion of a study
comparing women whose partners wear condoms with those whose partners
don't.
The study, which is bound to provoke controversy, showed that the women
who were directly exposed to semen were less depressed. The researchers
think this is because mood-altering hormones in semen are absorbed through
the vagina. They say they have ruled out other explanations.
"I want to make it clear that we are not advocating that people abstain
from using condoms," says Gordon Gallup, the psychologist at the State
University of New York who led the team. "Clearly an unwanted pregnancy or
a sexually transmitted disease would more than offset any advantageous
psychological effects of semen."
Suicide attempts
His team divided 293 female students into groups depending on how often
their partners wore condoms, and assessed their happiness using the Beck
Depression Inventory, a standard questionnaire for assessing mood. People
who score over 17 are considered moderately depressed.
The team found that women whose partners never used condoms scored 8 on
average, those who sometimes used them scored 10.5, those who usually used
them scored 15 and those who always used them scored 11.3. Women who
weren't having sex at all scored 13.5.
What's more, the longer the interval since they last had sex, the more
depressed the women who never or sometimes used condoms got. But the time
since the last sexual encounter made no difference to the mood of women
who usually or always used condoms.
The team also found that depressive symptoms and suicide attempts were
more common among women who used condoms regularly compared with those who
didn't. The results will appear in the journal Archives of Sexual
Behavior.
And Gallup told New Scientist that his team already has unpublished data
from a larger group of 700 women confirming these findings. In this study,
the always-use-condoms group were more depressed than the
usually-use-condoms group, suggesting the discrepancy in the smaller study
was a sampling error, he says.
Alternative explanations
But is it really the semen that affects women's mood? The researchers say
they looked at alternative explanations such as whether women who seldom
use condoms took oral contraceptives, how often they had sex, the strength
of relationships, and the possibility that having a certain type of
personality influenced the decision to use condoms. But none of these
factors can explain their findings, they say.
In fact, the results aren't a complete surprise because semen does contain
several mood-altering hormones, including testosterone, oestrogen,
follicle-stimulating hormone, luteinising hormone, prolactin and several
different prostaglandins. Some of these have been detected in a women's
blood within hours of exposure to semen.
The question many people will ask is whether oral sex could have the same
mood-enhancing effects. "Since the steroids in birth control pills survive
the digestion process, I would assume that the same holds true for at
least some of the chemicals in semen," Gallup says.
"I understand that among some gay males who have anal intercourse, it is
not uncommon to attempt to retain the semen for extended periods of time,"
he adds. "Suggesting, of course, that there may be psychological effects."
But further research will be needed to confirm whether exposure to semen
through oral or anal sex really does affect mood in heterosexual or
homosexual partners.
But why should semen have such an effect? "It makes no sense to me for
this phenomenon to have evolved," says Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary
psychologist at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. But Gallup
counters that men whose semen promotes long-term mood enhancement might
have more chances to indulge in sexual activity.
Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992457
Wednesday, 26 June, 2002, 18:00 GMT 19:00 UK
Semen 'makes women happy'
By Yhe BBC
Women exposed to their partner's semen during sex may find themselves
feeling happier than those who use a condom, say scientists.
Scientists in the US believe the mood-altering hormones in semen absorbed
through the vagina help to boost women's mood.
Semen contains a range of hormones, including testosterone and oestrogen,
both of which have been shown to improve mood.
However, they warned that their findings should not be used to encourage
people to practice unsafe sex.
Gordon Gallup and colleagues at the State University of New York divided
293 female students into groups on the basis of how often their partners
wore condoms.
Mood tests
They used standard psychological tests to assess how happy they were and
their overall mood.
They found that women whose partners never used condoms were happiest.
They were followed by women whose partners sometimes used condoms.
Women whose partners always used or usually used condoms were less happy.
The study, details of which are published in New Scientist magazine, also
found that a lack of sexual intercourse made some women depressed.
Women whose partners never or sometimes used condoms became more depressed
the longer they went without sex.
However, there was no similar pattern for those women whose partners
usually or always used condoms.
The scientists also found that depression and suicide attempts were more
common among those women whose partners used condoms regularly.
Further evidence
Mr Gallup told the magazine that an extended study on more than 700 women
has backed up these findings.
He added that other factors such as how often the women had sex, the
strength of their relationships, their personalities or the use of oral
contraceptives did not affect the overall conclusions.
Mr Gallup said the findings may also apply to women who engage in
unprotected oral sex and people who engage in anal sex. But he said
further research was needed in these areas.
But Mr Gallup, whose study will be published in the journal Archives of
Sexual Behaviour, urged couples to continue to practise safe sex.
"I want to make it clear that we are not advocating that people abstain
from using condoms," he said.
"Clearly an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease would
more than offset any advantageous psychological effects of semen."
Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_2067000/2067223.stm
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