Aside from skin cancer, prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer found in men in the United States. According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is also second to lung cancer when it comes to cancer deaths among American men, and one in seven men will get it at some point during their lifetime. But while doctors and researchers are unsure as to what, specifically, can cause prostate cancer, a new study has found that something might be able to lower a man’s chances of getting it. What could that possibly be? Oh, having lots of orgasms, of course.
Announced at this year’s American Urological Association’s annual meeting, researchers think that they have found the first “modifiable risk factor” for staving off prostate cancer and it's the very easy task of ejaculating. While other cancers can be avoided by taking the necessary steps toward living a healthy lifestyle, prostate cancer, however, is based more on genetics than anything else, so in finding a factor that could lower a man’s chances of getting the deadly disease, is basically like hitting the jackpot.
The first time “high ejaculation frequency” came up in research about prostate cancer was in 2004 after samples from 32,000 men were collected. The men, aged 20 to 29 and 40 to 49, were asked their ejaculation frequency per month, and the researchers went to work to figure out lifetime averages. What was found was that men who ejaculated at least 21 times a month lowered their chances of prostate cancer by 20 percent compared to men who came only four to seven times a month.
The reason for this is one we already know: Oxytocin is awesome. When we orgasm both the “love hormone” and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) are released into the body literally making it healthier. Oxytocin has been found to aid in heart health and DHEA has been found to lower chances of both breast and cervical cancer. It was also found in the 1970s that men who had an orgasm at least twice a week had a mortality rate that was 50 percent lower than men who weren’t indulging in everyone’s favorite past time as much. See? You really can’t have too many orgasms.
While this study may be specific to the health of men, as with the study that found men lose more weight thanks to oxytocin than women, it doesn’t mean we, as ladies, can’t make 21 orgasms a month part of our regime, too. Whether it’s with our partner or rolling solo, science has once again confirmed that orgasms, and lots of them, are exactly what the doctor ordered.
Images: Jessy Rone/Flickr; Giphy(2)
