Having This Much Sex A Week Is Linked To A Longer Life

Staying active, eating well, and getting enough sleep can go a long way to improving your expected lifespan and healthspan. 

But according to a study published in the BMJ, sex could say a lot about your lifespan too.

Their research, which focused on 918 men aged 45-59, found that, “Mortality risk was 50% lower in the group with high orgasmic frequency than in the group with low orgasmic frequency”. 

Another study found a link between the cessation of sex among older married men and an increased risk of death, while college students in a separate study seemed to have more salivary immunoglobulin A, which offers a first-line defence against disease, if they had “frequent” sex.

What is “frequent,” though? 

How much sex is linked to a longer life? 

To be clear, these studies don’t show that having sex itself definitely causes health or longevity improvements. It only shows a link, and researchers have argued that bad health is linked to less sex, not the other way around (though the studies didn’t directly prove that, either). 

Whatever the direction of cause and effect might be here, though, similar levels of sexual frequency show up in multiple bodies of research. 

In the BMJ study, men who had sex twice a week had a 50% lower risk of death than those who had sex once a month. And in the college student study, those who had sex one to two times a week fared better than both people who had sex less than once a week and those who had sex three or more times a week.

Yet another, more recent study found that having sex at least once a week was linked to a 10% decreased risk of heart disease mortality.

Once or twice a week appeared to be the sweet spot in these studies.