Wednesday bubble: Cheers! (Please, don’t let me burst this one!)

Posted by Liz on Aug 12, 2009 in sexual desire, sexual health | 0 comments

Can red wine help increase a woman’s sexual desire? Interesting data from an Italian study among 798 women between the ages of 18 and 50 suggest that indeed, it just might.

Researchers divided women without any sexual complaints into three groups:

• More than two glasses of red wine and other types of alcohol (including white wine) daily, and occasional drinkers
• One to two glasses of red wine daily (“moderate intake”)
• Teetotallars

All study participants were asked to complete a questionnaire measuring female sexual functioning, as well as report on their daily alcohol consumption. The questionnaire – the Female Sexual Function Index – contains 19 questions designed to assess desire, arousal, confidence, lubrication, orgasm, and the degree of pain during and after vaginal penetration.

The findings? Overall, women reporting daily moderate red wine drinking (one to two glasses) scored significantly higher in all domains of sexual functioning, including desire and lubrication, than women in the other two groups. More striking, however, was that the women who regularly drank red wine were reportedly older than women in the other two groups.

These study findings, which undoubtedly require more research and a larger study group, do suggest a link between moderate red wine intake and sexual desire, even among older women whose sexual functioning and desire, theoretically declines with age. Of course, there are many other factors that come into play for older women; we know that declining hormones affect the vaginal lining, causing pain and interfering with lubrication. We know that hormones can also affect weight and self-image, which affects desire. And of course, how we interact with our partners is also important.

But study after study all point to medicating ourselves back towards sexual desire. Could it be as simple as a few glasses of antioxidant rich red wine, which may help improve blood flow to key areas of the body, such as the vaginal region?

I’d love to think so.

The jury’s still out. But me? I’m planning on drinking a few glasses of red wine tonight…! I’m inspired; are you?

[Many thanks to my friend Daphne Swancutt for directing me to these data!]