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We all know high cholesterol is bad for the heart – but new research has suggested that it can reduce a woman’s sex drive as well. A study carried out at the Second University of Naples has shown that hyperlipedemia – or raised levels of blood cholesterol – can prevent women from becoming sexually aroused.

It was reported in the New Scientist that showed that just as men can have trouble achieving an erection if the flow of blood to the genitals is impared, so too women also rely on good genital blood flow to get aroused.

The researchers compared the sexual function of pre-menopausal women with and without hyperlipedemia. They discovered that women with the condition reported significantly lower scores when their arousal, orgasm, lubrication and sexual satisfaction was measured.

32% of the women with abnormal blood cholesterol levels scored so low as to be diagnosed with female sexual dysfunction, while only 9% of the women with normal blood lipid levels had this condition.

The research indicates that female sexual arousal is connected to organic diseases in the same way that men’s sexual problems are. The full study can be read in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The medical world has become more and more aware of the difficulties faced by women who lack sexual desire, leading to the condition Female Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder being accepted as a medical condition.

However a new study has revealed that when it comes to women having sex, desire is often the last thing to cross many women’s minds. A new book entitled, Why Women Have Sex highlighted the 200 top reasons women gave for why they had sex, with sexual feelings coming extremely low down on the list.

Cindy Meston and David Buss, psychology professors at the University of Texas and co-authors of the book, questioned 1,006 as research for the tome and concluded that while men find most women attractive in some way, most women do not find most men sexually attractive at all.

The answers that the women gave for why they went to bed with someone were fairly wide-ranging, from “for a clearer complexion”  (apparently this was Joan Collin’s response) to “because I felt sorry for them.” 1 in 10 women admitted to having sex because someone gave them presents or bought them an expensive meal. Other respondents said they had sex to cure headaches and improve their sexual skills. This last one was a popular response, and one girl said that she saw each encounter with her boyfriend as a chance to ‘heighten’ her skills.

Perhaps the most depressing answer was “I have sex to relieve the boredom. Because its easier than fighting. Plus it gives me something to do.”

The two researchers concluded that women’s sexual attraction was usually triggered by that most Mills and Boon-y character, the tall, deep-voiced man who smelled good, as these qualities indicate high levels of testosterone. However there was hope for short, squeaky-voiced fellows who smell bad, as men with a lower level of testosterone are seen as good long-term prospects, as they are less likely to run off with other women.

A paper published in the July edition of The Journal of Sexual Medicine has indicated that taking testosterone does not make menopausal women more likely to develop breast cancer.

The study has been greeted with approval by Biosante Pharmaceuticals Inc who are developing a topical testosterone gel to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women. The gel, named Libigel, is currently in Phase III clinical trials to assess its safety.

The study was done at the Department of Medicine at Alfred Hospital in Australia and was lead by Susan Davies, of the Women’s Health Program. The researchers evaluated 631 women who were treated with testosterone between 1989 and January 2007 as part of a clinical endocrinology practice.

They discovered that testosterone therapy was not associated with any statistically significant increase in the likelihood of a women developing breast cancer compared to the control population and furthermore concluded that testosterone exposure did not increase the risk of breast cancer.

The women took the testosterone on average for 1.3 years and were followed for a further 6.7 years. Taking into account the total number of years the women were followed for, the incidence rate of invasive breast cancer was 299 per 100,000 person-years, very similar to the rate reported for hormone therapy non-users.

BioSante recently issued a press release saying that they considered the study “another significant and reassuring set of data” showing that testosterone therapy was a safe way to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

Libigel is the only treatment currently in development for the treatment of HSDD in menopausal women and Biosante are hopeful that it will be the first product the FDA approves for the treatment of the condition. They said that they are planning to seek new drug approval from the FDA in mid-2011.

A study to be published in July’s edition of The Journal of Sexual Medicine has revealed that there has been a significant rise in the number of American doctors prescribing testosterone to combat hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in women.

In a survey sponsored by BioSante, the pharmaceutical company seeking a treatment for female sexual dysfunction, it was revealed that of 2 million prescriptions written for testosterone, 21% of those were for women. 80% of doctors questioned said they believed there was a need for a treatment for HSDD. A further 90% said that they would rather prescribe an approved treatment rather than the off-label therapies currently available.

Testosterone is not yet currently approved as a treatment for HSDD in post-menopausal women in the US although Intrinsa is approved for use in the UK and Europe. BioSante is currently conducting the clinical trials required for FDA approval of an alternative therapy. At the moment there are three trials taking place, two Phase III trials involved 500 patients and lasting 6 months examining the efficacy of the treatment and one Phase III trial to check cardiovascular safety. The testosterone is delivered via a gel named Libigel, which BioSante hope to submit to the FDA for new drug approval in 2011.

In their paper, Dr Michael C Snabes and Stephen M Simes wrote that they believe many doctors are writing prescriptions for women suffering from low desire as an off-label indication. They warned that this practice was contrary to FDA prescribing standards and raised the risk that appropriate doses were not being delivered. They added that the statistics showed that there was a considerable number of women living with low sexual desire, many of whom felt their lives were being severely affected by the condition.

Yesterday’s papers all carried stories about how intelligent women apparently have better sex. So does IQ means that women are less likely to suffer from female sexual dysfunction? Well, not entirely. The study, done by scientists from Kings College London, actually focused on emotional intelligence, defined as “the ability to identify emotions of one’s self and others”.

Examining results from a survey of over 2,000 women, the researchers did find that there was a link between emotional intelligence and the frequency of orgasms. They focused on twins aged between 18 and 83, taking into account that twins were likely to be more alike than women who were unrelated. The survey included questions on the frequency respondents achieved orgasm through intercourse and masturbation, with a follow-up questionnaire exploring emotional intelligence through the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, a measure of global emotional intelligence. They also examined whether other factors might play a role, such as body mass index, age, educational level or a history of physical or mental abuse, but found that emotional intelligence was not altered by these factors.

The researchers discovered that better emotional intelligence would affect a women’s ability to explain her desires to her partner and also her ability to function sexually. Those women in the lowest quarter of emotional intelligence were twice more likely to have orgasms infrequently compared to those in the top quarter. They therefore concluded in the peer-reviewed Journal of Sexual Medicine that emotional intelligence was a risk factor that should be taken into account when treating and researching treatments for female sexual dysfunction.

A study published by the Medical College of Georgia has indicated that the three most popular medications used to treat erectile dysfunction: Viagra; Levitra; and Cialis may have properties that could be used to treat female sexual dysfunction. While scientists have been theorising as to whether this might be the case and vacillating back and forth between yes and no, the Georgia scientists say they believe there should be further research into the treatment possibilities.

The scientists discovered that in both male and female rats, the pudendal artery, supplying blood to the penis or clitoris and vagina, was relaxed by PDE Type 5 Inhibitors, also known as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Increased blood flow to the female genitals is a necessary part of a female orgasm. First the rats were given a drug to put the internal pudendal arteries into the same state they would be in a non-aroused state and then they were examined to see the impact of different doses of one of the three impotency medications.

While the male rats showed a fairly typical reaction, with the more drug they received the more relaxed the arteries became, the reaction in the female rats was more complex. They showed relaxation initially, and then with the doses that followed exhibited vacillations between relaxation and contraction. The researchers believe these different reactions provide further evidence that sexual reaction is more complex in women than men.

At the 122^nd Annual Meeting of the American Physiological Society Dr. Kyan J. Allahdadi, post-doctoral fellow in physiology at MCG, said they the findings indicate that scientists should not give up on the possibility of ED medications also being useful to help women living with sexual disorders. He recommended that further investigations take place and said that it was possible that ‘small alterations’ to the compound of the drugs could make them more effective for women.

Scientists at Stanford University believe that they now have proof that hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD, is largely affected by brain activity. The team, comprised of researchers from a variety of disciplines, began the research with the aim of discovering how big a role the brain played in a lack of female sexual desire.

They compared the brain activity of women suffering from HSDD to those who did not have it, studying in total 36 women, all who identified as heterosexual. They showed participants erotic video clips interspersed with footage of women-only sporting events. The sections were spilt up by tranquil montages of flowers, waves and other images to put the women’s brains into a resting state.

They discovered that while generally brain activity was more or less identical between the two groups; there were a few notable exceptions. They found amongst women with HSDD there was a bigger jump in certain areas of the brain while there was less activity in another part. Knowing which area s of the brain showed a specifically different reaction has lead the scientists to the conclusion that having an increased attention to one’s own responses to erotic stimuli plays a part in sexual dysfunction. The scientists noticed decreased responses in the entorhinal cortex, which may be linked to the discovery that women not suffering from HSDD are better able to retain emotional memories relating to sexual events.

The study has provided an interesting insight into the emotional and behavioural element to HSDD. Leah Millheiser, a specialist in female sexual health at Stanford, believes that the research may lead to better treatment of the condition. She said, “The results of this study provide yet another valuable tool for understanding the complexity of female sexual function as it relates to desire. The next step is to translate this information into the clinical realm, specifically as it relates to cognitive and pharmacotherapeutic approaches”.

Despite its extensive clinical testing, a medical journal devoted to research into drug treatments has cast doubt as to the efficacy of the one of the leading treatments for female sexual dysfunction, Intrinsa. The Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin have said that the trials into the treatment involved too selective a group of patients, that diagnosis was based on short, invalidated questionnaires and that women taking the placebo medication also reported an improvement in their sex lives.

The patch, manufactured by Proctor and Gamble Pharmaceuticals, is designed to combat the diminishing of sexual desire in post-menopausal women, known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) by releasing a daily dose of the hormone testosterone into the bloodstream through a patch placed on the abdomen. It is given to women who are also being given treatment to raise their levels of the oestrogen. Proctor and Gamble say that the medication has been extensively tested and proven to work.

The scientists have suggested that the results from women taking the placebo suggest that testosterone was not the issue in the first place and have also drawn attention to the potential side effects of Intrinsa. Proctor and Gamble have rigorously defended the claims, saying that having gone through trials with over 1,000 women they are convinced of the efficacy of the product and also pointing out that they have in place an independently managed safety advisory board and risk management plan.