50 years on and hormonal contaceptives are linked to Female Sexual Dysfunction while the hoped for  male pill is touted to get men more involved in their personal health care.

It seems hormonal contraceptives were at highest risk of Female Sexual Dysfunction while women taking non-hormonal contraceptives were at lowest risk for FSD.

“Sexual problems can have a negative impact on both quality of life and emotional well-being, regardless of age,” said researcher Dr. Lisa-Maria Wallwiener of the University of Heidelberg, Germany. “FSD is a very common disorder, with an estimated prevalence of about two in five women having at least one sexual dysfunction, and the most common complaint appearing to be low desire.”

Now I admit some concern at Dr Wallweiners statistics.

The much quoted claim that 43% of US woman have FSD is doesn not stand up scientifically.

In  43% of women are NOT sexually dysfunctional we siascuss how everything prom a stressful day to saying “no” because of a spousal argument was used to fake a statistic and invent a disease.

Sure, there are medical issues effecting desire. To be fair, the Gwerman research ttries to break things down.

“The causes of FSD are multifunctional and in recent years the possible role of hormonal contraception has been discussed,” said fellow researchers Drs. Christian and Markus Wallwiener, University of Tuebingen, Germany.

“Women tend to be aware that sexual dysfunction is often influenced by various factors such as stress and relationships, but our study has shown it might also be influenced by exogenous hormone application” she said in Medical News Today.

Atleast the  questionaire of female 1086 German medical students (or 2.5% of female German medical students) published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine identified sexual function issues, as well as lifestyle factors.

Lifestyle factors included desire for children, pregnancy and whether they were smokers. 87.4% had used contraceptives in the last 6 months, and 97.3% had been sexually active within the last four weeks.

The study then excluded women using multiple forms of contraception or who were not sexually active within the last four weeks. Of theremaining 1046 women, 32.4% were considered at risk for FSD: 5.8% at high risk for hypoactive sexual desire disorder, 1% for arousal disorder, 1.2% for decreased lubrication, 8.7% for orgasm disorder, 2.6% for satisfaction problems, and 1.1% for pain.
“It would be interesting to see if there is a difference between the dosage of estrogen and the various synthetic progestins used in hormonal contraceptives in terms of an impact on female sexual function,” said Dr. Harald Seeger, also of University of Tuebingen, Germany.

“We would also urge some caution in interpretation of our present results and would like to highlight that this type of study cannot demonstrate causality but rather association and there might exist a multitude of factors that have an impact on female sexual function.”

“The irony is that these women are provided a medication that enables freedom from reproductive worries but these same women are not provided information that there are significant adverse sexual effects that may ensue” he said.

“Agents that interfere with the hormonal milieu of women may adversely affect their sexual lives”

Meanwhile,  Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed) announced that it has received $1.5 million in grant funding to study a contraceptive for men that uses a combination of two hormonal gels applied to the skin of the arm and abdomen

“Just as women gained greater control over their reproductive choices and their health with the advent of the birth control pill, a male contraceptive would get men more involved in their personal health care and would give them greater reproductive choices,” said director of the LA BioMed at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Dr. Ronald Swerdloff.

“Men are less likely than women to see their physicians on a regular basis. If they relied on a male contraceptive prescribed by their doctor, men would be more likely to visit their physicians on a regular basis – as women on birth control pills currently do.”

Is Dr Swerdloff right? Or is it just a marketers wishful thinking?

Photo by Holy6669666