Having sex does not cause heart attacks
According to the research published in the American College of Cardiology, exhaustion from sexual activity is comparable to climbing two staircases or taking a brisk walk, so it’s totally not a serious risk for heart disease patients.
Researchers looked at 536 heart disease patients between 30 and 70 years old to evaluate sexual activity in the 12 months before a heart attack and estimate the association of frequency of sexual activity with subsequent cardiovascular events, including fatal heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death.
In a self-reported questionnaire, 14.9% of patients reported no sexual activity in the 12 months before their heart attack, 4.7% reported sex less than once per month, 25.4% reported less than once per week and 55% reported one or more times per week. During 10 years of follow up, 100 adverse cardiovascular events occurred in patients in the study. Sexual activity was not a risk factor for subsequent adverse cardiovascular events.
Researchers also evaluated the timing of the last sexual activity before the heart attack. Only 0.7% reported sex within an hour before their heart attack. In comparison, over 78% reported that their last sexual activity occurred more than 24 hours before the heart attack.
“Based on our data, it seems very unlikely that sexual activity is a relevant trigger of heart attack,” said Dietrich Rothenbacher, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and professor and chair of the Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry at Ulm University in Ulm, Germany. “Less than half of men and less than a third of women are getting information about sexual activity after heart attack from their doctors. It is important to reassure patients that they need not be worried and should resume their usual sexual activity.”
Researchers said that despite the benefits of sexual activity outweighing risks, the potential of erectile dysfunction as a side effect from various cardiovascular protective medications and the risk of a drop in blood pressure from combining certain heart medications with erectile dysfunction medications should be clearly communicated to patients.
