Is sex good medicine for men with Parkinson’s?

Is sex good medicine for men with Parkinson’s?

Sex has its perks.  Muscle toning, stress relief, improved immunity, better sleep and it appears to reduce disease progression of Parkinson’s disease for men. The last sexual perk mentioned regarding Parkinson’s disease is findings from a study published in the European Journal of Neurology. Results showed that men with early-stage Parkinson’s disease who are sexually active experience milder disease progressions and a less dramatic loss of motor skills along with other disease symptoms.

This is good news for men who have recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in its earliest stages.  However, these same findings appear not to apply to women with Parkinson’s disease.  It is not completely understood why but one factor could be that the research had enrolled twice as many men (238 men versus 117 women) and that women experience different Parkinson’s symptoms from men.

What is Parkinson’s disease?

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that can be very debilitating.  It affects the part of your brain that controls how you move your body.  Symptoms start gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand.  Tremors are common but the disorder also commonly causes stiffness or slowing of movement in the early stages of the disease and your face may show little or no expression.

At this time there is no known cure or prevention of the disease and symptoms can be difficult to treat. The Parkinson’s Foundation estimates that roughly 1 million Americans will be living with Parkinson’s disease by 2020.

Study details and results

For this latest research, study participants had an average age of 57 years old when first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  At the 2005-2006 study launch, all were classified with “early-stage” disease.

Each participant underwent motor skill disability testing and mental health screenings before completing a health interview asking about overall heart health, sleep habits, feelings of fatigue, pain or apathy, stomach and urinary status, attention and memory skills, body weight changes, and respiratory condition.

One other question each participant was assessed on was if they had had sex and/or sexual dysfunction during the past year. The response of men in this study was that they were twice as sexually active as the women participants. Two-thirds of the men were having sex while only one-third of the women were.

Of the men who were having sex, almost half of them complained of erectile dysfunction and orgasm issues.  Despite some of these problems, researchers still found that men who engaged in sexual activity had less severe motor disability and a better overall quality of life than men who did not engage in sex.  For the women, the findings were not the same.

These findings go along with the concept that having sex increases pleasure, communication and satisfaction between couples.  It also enhances and solidifies relationship intimacy, and reduces stress and symptoms associated with Parkinson’s.

At the same time, it has been known and well-established that patients with Parkinson’s disease who take a class of drugs known as dopamine agonists which include Mirapex and Requip, may develop hypersexuality along with impulse buying, gambling, and binge eating. For men who may be taking these medications that increase impulsivity, this could be another reason why the men are engaging in more sex.

Researchers of this strongly cautioned that until more studies are conducted, conclusions on sex’s role in slowing down Parkinson’s disease progression are preliminary.