Older Women Are Having More Sex Than Younger Ones

Middle aged women are often thought to be beyond their sexual prime, but a recent study has shown that the sexual wellness and wellbeing of this age group is likely to far exceed that of younger women. Those who are sexually active during middle age are also likely to keep having sex as they get older, even if they have been diagnosed with some form of sexual dysfunction.

 

Based at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, the team of researchers looked at data from a group of 602 women aged between 40 and 65 which reported on their sex lives, how sexually active they were and how important they felt sex was to their lives.

 

The lead author of the study, Dr. Holly Thomas, said that there was a popular preconception in the public that when women get older, sex becomes less important, and also that women stop having sex as they get older. Based on the study, it appears that most women continue to have sex during middle age.

 

Sexual dysfunction is a label that is frequently applied to women in this age group, but doctors and psychologists have long debated how useful it is to use this label at all. There is a test called the Female Sexual Function Index which is meant to test women’s sexual problems. There are 19 questions in the test, centring around orgasm, arousal, vaginal lubrication and any pain felt during sex.

 

As part of the recent study, the middle aged women who were sexually active took the test and then took it again four years later. Over 85 percent of the women who reported that they were sexually active when they first took the test, were still sexually active when they took the test again the second time.

Categories: age group, aged women, Dysfunction, female, middle age, Middle-Aged, sexual, sexual dysfunction, sexually active, Test, Women

Add Walnuts to your Diet to Reduce the Risk of Diabetes

Adding walnuts to diet could reduce an older woman’s risk of developing diabetes, according to US research.

The study, by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, built on previous research which had revealed a potential correlation between nuts and the prevention of diabetes. The Harvard study pinpointed walnuts as the nut most likely to reduce middle-aged women’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Nuts have a high fat content and this would seem to make them an unlikely aid to preventing diabetes, one of the causes of which is known to be obesity. However, the Nurses’ Health Studies I and II, which has been monitoring women’s diet and health for three decades, looked at middle-aged women who had been consuming walnuts over a 10-year period and discovered a possible link between eating walnuts regularly and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.

The Harvard study did note that eating too many nuts could be a health concern because nuts are high in fat and also have a high energy content. However, the research showed that women who ate a lot of walnuts didn’t put on weight and now more research is planned to explore exactly how walnuts stop an individual gaining weight.

Walnuts are rich in a fatty acid known as polyunsaturated fatty acids, PUFAs, and have many other nutrients, antioxidants and compounds that are beneficial to health. PUFAs help with cognition and brain function and the Harvard team believe PUFAs may hold the key to diabetes prevention.

Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the blood disorder, in which the body fails to produce enough insulin or any insulin at all to convert the glucose in food into fuel for the blood cells. It is considered one of the major worldwide health problems, usually affecting people over the age of 40.

Add Walnuts to your Diet to Reduce the Risk of Diabetes

Categories: aged women, Diabetes, harvard, harvard study, health, Middle-Aged, nuts, reduced risk, Type 2 Diabetes, Walnuts