The highly popular discovery that ejaculation reduces the risk of prostate cancer has been confirmed, giving men everywhere one more reason to celebrate in style. It seems it doesn’t matter whether you are shooting on your own or with company, although the news may not be so good for those who follow certain branches of tantra.
In 2004, a seminal study found that the more often men ejaculated, the less likely they were to get prostate cancer. The large sample size of this study made it very different from the recent, but sadly unreliable, report on the weight-loss benefits of chocolate. However, all science is provisional, and this research is particularly so.
Prostate cancer seldom emerges before 50, and many of the participants, who were questioned every two years from 1992-2000, were yet to hit the peak danger years. Moreover, while the study found that the most frequent ejaculators were at a lower risk of developing prostate cancer, middling frequency didn’t offer a statistically significant benefit compared to the lowest group.
Clearly this topic called for more research, and possibly more engagement on the part of study volunteers. Therefore, Dr. Jennifer Rider of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health stepped in with a follow-up study that extended the period over which the research was run from eight to 18 years.
Of the 31,925 men originally enrolled in the study, 3,839 have now been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 384 have died as a result. Men who ejaculated more than 21 times a month were significantly less likely to develop prostate cancer than those who did so 4-7 times. For those with a (adult) lifetime average above 21 times a month, cancer risk was reduced by a third.
The bad news is that regular enjoyment doesn’t have a measurable effect on the most deadly forms of prostate cancer, instead reducing the “organ-confined and low-grade” cancer risks. Possible explanations include the release of beneficial hormones during orgasm and the flushing out of the prostate through the ejaculation itself.
The study was presented at the American Urological Association annual meeting in May, handily coinciding with international masturbation month.
With such a large sample revealing intimate details, Rider was able to investigate the association between frequency of getting off and a number of other factors. Some of the results were surprising. “Ejaculation frequency was inversely associated with age, but positively associated with BMI, physical activity, divorce, history of sexually transmitted infection, and consumption of calories and alcohol,” she reported. So chocolate may not help you lose weight, but it could have other unexpected benefits. Whether divorce leads to more orgasms, or men letting rip outside the marital bed were more likely to get divorced, was not established.
As we’ve reported before, the health benefits of sexual satisfaction extend far beyond a single organ, but with the ejaculation/prostate cancer link being one of the most quoted, it is good to see it confirmed.
H/T Boingboing