Sex doesn't get old for elderly
2008-08-13 14:28
Chicago - Getting old does not mean
saying so long to sex, US researchers said on Wednesday.
More than three-quarters of American men aged 75 to 85 and
half of women that age are still interested in sex, a survey of
the elderly by University of Chicago researchers found.
"It's not age per se; that when you get to 80 it's all over
with," said sociologist Edward Laumann, who led the study of
3 000 American men and women aged 57 to 85 who lived at home,
not in nursing homes.
"It's driven by more proximate factors such as if you
become obese, or you're smoking too much, or you contract
diabetes. Medications can depress sexual interest. The ageing
process itself is not a major factor driving these results," he
said in a telephone interview.
Middle age difficult
Laumann and his team, who performed a companion survey of
younger adults nearly a decade ago, found that sexual
dysfunction such as experiencing pain during sex or an
inability to achieve orgasm tend to increase as adults reach
middle age but then plateaus.
In the survey of elderly Americans, two-thirds of the men
and nearly half the women had been sexually active in the past
year, they reported in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The reasons for losing interest in sex are wrapped up in
several physical and mental health factors, Laumann said.
"If sexual health goes to hell, it may be a canary in the
mine shaft. It may be a sign of health problems," Laumann said,
urging doctors to investigate if sexual problems arise.
Chronic urinary tract infections and incontinence often
suppress sex lives, he said.
Having a partner to have sex with can also be problematic
for the elderly. Among women aged 70 and older, 70% have
outlived or are separated from their spouses. Among men in that
age group, 35% have lost a long-time partner.
If the surviving relationship is bad, that can snuff out
the couple's sex life, Laumann added.
"Anxiety is very clearly a big factor (in sexual
dysfunction) for women, and depression in men," he said. "And
men can become very depressed because of sexual dysfunction."
14% try ED drugs
Erectile dysfunction increases from 31% among men
aged 57 to 64 to more than 40% among older men. Laumann
said he had found in other research that 14% of men of
all ages had tried erectile dysfunction drugs.
Those who have attended college are less likely to have
sexual problems than the less-educated, Laumann said,
presumably because the educated tend to dismiss myths about sex
and ageing and are more likely to seek out answers.
Last month, Swedish researchers reported that 70-year-olds
of both sexes are having more sex than they did 30 years ago,
with 68% of married men and 54% of women saying
they were having sex in 2001, up from 52% of men in the
early 1970s and 30% of women.
- Reuters