quick25 137 Report post Posted December 7, 2010 Sex Prevents Colds and Flu Sex may prevent flu Sex Can Boost The Immune System It?s official: sex is good for you, at least in moderation. Psychologists in Pennsylvania have shown that people who have sex once or twice a week get a boost to their immune systems. Scientists can evaluate how robust our immune systems are by measuring levels of immunoglobulin found in saliva and mucous linings. ?This is the first line of defence against colds and flu,? says Carl Charnetski of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre. Immunoglobulin binds to pathogens at all the points of entry to the body, then calls on the immune system to destroy them. To find out if sex can alter immunoglobulin levels, Charnetski and his colleague Frank Brennan asked 111 Wilkes undergraduates, aged 16 to 23, how frequently they?d had sex over the previous month. They also measured levels of immunoglobulin in the volunteers? saliva. The results showed that participants who had sex less than once a week had a tiny increase in immunoglobulin over those who abstained completely. Those who had one or two sexual encounters each week had a 30 per cent rise in levels of the antigen. But people who had very frequent sex-three times a week or more-had lower immunoglobulin levels than the abstainers. The researchers presented the results this week at a meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association in Providence, Rhode Island. Clifford Lowell, an immunologist at the University of California at San Francisco, thinks the high levels of immunoglobulin in volunteers who had moderately frequent sex are easy to understand. ?Sexually active people may be exposed to many more infectious agents than sexually non-active people,? Lowell says. ?The immune system would respond to these foreign antigens by producing and releasing more immunoglobulin.? This could give them better protection against colds and flu. Why there was no immunoglobulin rise in the most sexually active group is less clear. ?My feeling is that the people in the very-frequent-sex group may be in obsessive or poor relationships that are causing them a lot of anxiety,? speculates Charnetski. ?We know that stress and anxiety make immunoglobulin go down.? Well I'm always one for following the Doctor's orders.;) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites