An unhealthy lifestyle could put men at risk for sexual dysfunction, according to a new study.

Several factors associated with an unhealthy lifestyle, such as weight problems, physical inactivity, high alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking and hard drugs appear to be associated with sexual dysfunctions.

Additionally, unhealthy lifestyles are more common among persons who are sexually inactive.

Danish researchers analyzed survey data from over 5,500 men and women to study the association between lifestyle factors, sexual inactivity and sexual dysfunction.

They found that unhealthy lifesty factors are associated with an increased risk of sexual inactivity by up to 78 percent in men and 91 percent in women.

Meanwhile, the risk of experiencing sexual dysfunction was up to 71 percent greater in overweight men, and more than 800 percent greater in men who used hard drugs.

The researchers also found that women who used hashish had a risk nearly three times greater of anorgasmia – not being able to reach climax during sexual activity – than non-hashish users.

“Hopefully our findings can be used in future counseling of patients with unhealthy lifestyles,” said lead researcher Professor Morten Frisch, MD, PhD, DSc, of Statens Serum Institute. “Knowing about possible negative consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle to one’s sexual health may help people quit smoking, consume less alcohol, exercise more, and lose weight.”

The study was published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Scientists have found evidence of brain damage in adolescents and young adults who binge drink, according to a new study.

University of Cincinnati researchers conducted high-resolution brain scans on a sample of 29 people, aged 18 to 25, who reported binge drinking on the weekends.

They found that binge drinking – consuming four or more drinks for females and five or more drinks for males – was linked to cortical thinning of the pre-frontal cortex.

The pre-frontal cortex is the area of the brain related to executive functioning such as paying attention, planning and making decisions, processing emotions and controlling impulses that may otherwise lead to irrational behavior.

The greater the number of drinks a person drank in one sitting, the more likely a person was to have some cortical thinning in the brain, the researchers said.

“Alcohol might be neurotoxic to the neuron cells, or, since the brain is developing in one’s 20s, it could be interacting with developmental factors and possibly altering the ways in which the brain is still growing,” explained lead researcher Tim McQueeny, a doctoral student in the UC Department of Psychology.

Conversely, the researchers found that abstinence of drinking, or even less drinking, could lead to some recovery of brain matter.

The findings affect a significant population, the researchers said. Statistics from the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicate that 42 percent of young American adults between 18 and 25 have engaged in binge drinking.

McQueeny will present the findings this week at the 34^th annual meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Atlanta.

How does teen dating affect teen drinking? Not in the way you might expect.

A study of nearly 500 students shows it’s not necessarily a significant other’s drinking habits that influence a teenager, but rather the drinking habits of the significant other’s friends that do.

The drinking habits of a romantic partner’s friends are even more likely to affect a teenager’s drinking patterns than the teenager’s own friends do.

“Dating someone whose friends are big drinkers is more likely to cause an adolescent to engage in dangerous drinking behaviors than are the drinking habits of the adolescent’s own friends or romantic partner,” said Derek Kreager, study author. “This applies to both binge drinking and drinking frequency.”

However, the researchers added, the effect doesn’t always skew towards heavier drinking. It can actually go either way.

“If an adolescent is a drinker and he or she starts going out with someone whose friends predominately don’t drink, you would find the same effect but in the opposite direction,” Kreager said.

The researchers speculate that teenagers adopt habits of their partner’s friends in order to strengthen their relationship with their partner.

There was a slight gender difference apparent in the study. Girls were significantly less likely than their male partners to binge drink.

“Our research suggests that, if anything, males are more susceptible to a significant other’s influence than are girls,” Kreager said.

The study was published in the journal American Sociological Review.

Call it a generational gap?

New data indicates that people born after World War II are more likely to binge drink and develop alcoholism.

The research, in particular, points to women at being increasingly at risk for alcohol abuse issues.

Additionally, while the trend was particularly strong in the United States, it was not evident at all in Australia and Western Europe.

The review is one of the first to compile data from individual studies on alcohol use disorders and provide evidence that problem drinking among young women is still increasing, an important finding for public health professionals to take into account.

Because of differences in body size and composition, a woman will become more intoxicated than a man consuming the same quantity of alcohol. Women who drink heavily are also at greater risk of sexual violence and chronic diseases than men.

Based on the results, the researchers recommend that specific prevention and intervention policies be developed to target young women specifically.

The study will be published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

It was funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

College students talk about hooking up, a lot – much more than it actually happens, as it turns out.
Naturally, this leads to some mistaken perceptions among the students about the frequency of these types of encounters.

The study, which took place at the University of Nebraska, defined hooking up as “casual intimate encounters outside of dating or exclusive relationships” and looked at the extent to which all the talk about hooking up influenced risky sexual behavior.

According to the results, 84 percent of students had talked with their college friends in the previous four months about hookups. However, when asked how many hookups they had during the school year, the students reported far fewer for him or herself than what they assumed a “typical student” had experienced.

The talk about hooking up proved to be more influential than the actual experience of the students. Among other results, the researchers found that talking regularly about hook ups led students to think more approvingly about the practice, and often, riskier sexual behavior.

The study also found that the more communication there was about such non-relationship sex, particularly among close college friends, the greater chance those students would participate in sexual hook ups.

By the numbers:

-54 percent of students reported having participated in a sexual hookup during the school year.

-63 percent of males reported engaging in a sexual hookup compared to 45 percent of females

-37 percent of students reported two or more hookups during the school year.

-90 percent of the students assumed that a “typical” student had been involved in two or more hookups.

The study was published in the journal Health Communication.

As a doctor, I get a lot of questions in my practice and my email inbox. Here’s one that was sent to me recently by a viewer:

Dr. Manny, are there any health benefits to drinking beer? Which beers are the ‘healthiest’? – Brian

Well, Brian, this is what I have to say: don’t be afraid to knock back a cold one. Beer actually has a number of surprising health benefits.

Despite beer’s bad reputation, it contains numerous natural antioxidants and vitamins that can help prevent heart disease and rebuild muscle. It also has one of the highest energy contents of any food or drink. Of course, this means you need to set limits: one beer gets you going, four makes you fat.

For those concerned about dehydration, keep in mind that beer is 93 percent water. According to a Spanish study, beer may actually provide better hydration than H2O alone when you’re sweating under the sun.

As for the second part of the question, which kind of beer should you reach for? If you’re counting calories, you may be tempted to grab a light lager, but for health benefits, dark beer is the better choice.

Dark beers tend to have the most antioxidants, which help reverse cellular damage that occurs naturally in the body. A recent study has also found that dark beer has higher iron content, which is essential for producing red blood cells as well as for muscle and brain function.

Another thing to keep in mind is that microbrews are typically healthier than mass-produced cans, because they have more hops. Hops contain polyphenols, which help lower cholesterol, fight cancer and kill viruses.

Just remember: Everything in moderation. You don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of your friends by drinking too much, and you certainly don’t want to put yourself at risk for any long-term health effects like liver problems, kidney diseases and heart disease.

Email me your health-related questions at askdrmanny@gmail.com.