The hitch after the itch.....

Times of India; 26^th January, 2003

Anubha Sawhney, Times News Network

Courtship. Marriage. Honeymoon. And then, been there done that. "I don't enjoy sex with my husband anymore," says Priya Tuli, a market analyst, "There's no excitement left in our relationship." The seven-year-itch in reverse?

"Gone are the days when the concept of the seven-year-itch was limited to men, " points out psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh, MD, "More and more women are outlining how dissatisfied they are with the sexual powers of their husbands and how they would prefer other men.

What was a man's adulterous fantasies in the seven year itch, has today become a way of life. " I think it's unfair to have blamed the men all along," grins Mohit Sharma, a graphic designer, "Who would be able to resist thinking of the voluptuous Marilyn Monroe? Technicalities aside, men are much less prone to being fickle than women.".

Does Mohit have a point? Analyse this. Sex expert Prakash Kothari cites the case of a female patient who expressed her frustration at her husband's lack of interest in foreplay, "She gave me a month's time to talk to him, after which she claimed she would not think twice before having an affair," he elaborated.

Medical men call this condition the Coolidge Effect which by definition, is the situation of a couple married for some time no longer finding each other sexually attractive. That a relationship suffers after the initial euphoria of marriage is now an inevitable reality.

Psychiatrist Samir Parikh, MD, suggests counselling and enhanced communication as the best way to prevent the knot from coming apart. So, even if there is no itch after seven years, all it takes to understand your spouse is scratch below the surface. Yes that might in shining amour could be just an intimate pillow talk away.

Women prefer SNAGS, sensitive new age guys!

June 04, 2004

Sydney, June 4 (ANI):

Macho men make way for the sensitive, caring guys.

According to The Herald Sun, data collected by Australia Scan shows that sensitive new age guys(SNAGs) are hit amongst women rather then their macho counterparts.

The respondents were asked about the characteristics they would like their ideal man to have and most of the women rated sweet qualities like being caring, friendly, and loving highest on the list. Surprisingly, even the bedroom wasn't a high priority for the modern day women, as only 56 per cent wanted their ideal man to be sexy.

Even men wanted their women to be caring, friendly and loving along with being efficient in kitchen.72 percent men preferred domesticated women.

The art of being polite was also a hit among both the sexes as 82 per cent of men preferred polite women, and 80 per cent of the fairer sex claimed to be enamoured by a man of manners. (ANI)

(For source click here)

Diseases have a gender bias

There's more to women

27/09/2004 13:00 - (SA)

# Health24: Women's health

Chicago - Beyond the tired cliches and sperm-and-egg basics taught in grade school science class, researchers are discovering that men and women are even more different than anyone realised.

It turns out that major illnesses like heart disease and lung cancer are influenced by gender and that perhaps treatments for women ought to be slightly different from the approach used for men.

These discoveries are part of a quiet but revolutionary change infiltrating US medicine as a growing number of scientists realise there's more to women's health than just the anatomy that makes them female, and that the same diseases often affect men and women in different ways.

"Women are different than men, not only psychologically (but) physiologically, and I think we need to understand those differences," says Dr Catherine DeAngelis, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

DeAngelis, who became the journal's first female editor in 1999, says she has made it a mission to publish only research in which data are broken down by sex unless it involves a disease that affects just men or women.

In recent months, two medical textbooks billed as the first devoted to gender differences in all areas of medicine, not just reproductive medicine, were published; a widely cited Journal of the AMA report re-emphasised the neglected fact that lung cancer, not breast cancer, is the No 1 cancer killer among women; and the American Heart Association announced the first-ever heart disease prevention guidelines tailored specifically for women.

The gender-based medicine movement isn't an effort to diminish the importance of breast cancer, but is meant to emphasise that "we have more than one body part, folks. Up until now ... that awareness just hasn't been there", said Sherry Marts of the Society for Women's Health Research.

That organisation seeks to expand the definition of women's health beyond breast and reproductive health, what some call "bikini medicine".

Until the 1990s, scientists frequently excluded women from medical research, including drug studies. It was largely out of concern over effects on reproduction but also because of a long-standing belief that men and women "were biologically the same except for their reproductive organs", Marts said.

However, recent discoveries suggest that genes, hormones and lifestyle may be behind many of the differences.

For example:

# Heart attacks in women frequently don't involve chest pain and may involve more vague, flu-like symptoms.

# Women who don't smoke appear to be more susceptible to lung cancer than non-smoking men. Women also tend to get lung cancer at younger ages than men, and they appear to metabolise cancer-causing substances differently than men.

# Women are less likely than men to get oral cancer.

# Women are more prone to auto-immune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, in which disease-fighting mechanisms mistakenly attack the body's own tissues.

# Some Aids-fighting medicines appear to metabolise more quickly in men than in women, who may require gender-specific doses.

# Women's symptoms for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease -debilitating intestinal diseases that affect men and women - vary considerably each month, requiring frequent medication adjustments.

Associated Press

(another source: click here)

Heart 'key' to women's longevity

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/bbc_logo.gif.
Monday, 10 January, 2005,

Women could be living longer than men because they have stronger hearts, a study says.

A team from Liverpool John Moores University found men's hearts lose up to a quarter of their pumping power from 18 years old to 70.

But there was little change in women's hearts from 20 to 70, the study of 250 people said.

The researchers said the difference may explain why women live on average up to five years longer than men.

Each volunteer in the research underwent five hours of tests focusing on body composition, blood pressure and heart performance.

The study found large arteries became stiffer and less elastic with age, causing blood pressure to increase both at rest and during exercise.

Blood flow to the muscles and skin of limbs also progressively decreased, the team found. This occurred earlier in men, but women soon caught up after menopause.

But lead researcher Professor David Goldspink said it was the difference in heart strength that was most interesting.

"This dramatic gender difference might just explain why women live longer than men."

But he said related-research showed that men had the potential to improve their health.

'Improvement'

He found that the hearts of veteran athletes were as strong as those of an inactive 20 year-old.

He said: "If men work at it, they can preserve the power and performance of their ageing hearts."

Professor Goldspink added people needed more information about what benefits they can gain in response to different levels of physical activity.

But Dr Suzanne Wait, director of research for think-tank the International Longevity Centre UK, welcomed the research but pointed out that women were still dying from heart disease.

One in six deaths in women are from coronary heart disease, the main form of cardiovascular disease, according to British Heart Foundation statistics.

Dr Wait said: "What is important to keep in mind is that even if this study is true what is often not recognised is that women get cardiovascular disease too.

"It is still the biggest killer among women."

And Belinda Linden, head of medical information at the British Heart Foundation, cast doubt on the study.

"The authors discuss the issue of inactivity among men and yet in the UK population overall, women are less active than men.

"The number of men and women investigated may not be adequate to provide a conclusive interpretation of the findings.

"Women tend to develop coronary heart disease about 10 years later than men - the differences noted between men and women in this research may be linked with the UK trends in heart disease."

(Original Article : BBC)

Suffering from Hurried Woman Syndrome?

Daily Mail

By ROBIN YAPP, Daily Mail, 30th April 2005

Being a mother, holding down a career and doing the housework can be an exhausting combination.

Now experts say increasing numbers of women are so rushed off their feet that they are suffering from a condition called Hurried Woman Syndrome.

The illness is typically caused by chronic stress which results from the demands of juggling work with a hectic family life, such as bringing up children and caring for elderly relatives.

This causes symptoms such as tiredness, increased appetite, weight gain, trouble sleeping, lack of motivation, and feelings of guilt and low self-esteem.

The term Hurried Woman Syndrome was first coined by US researcher Dr Brent Bost, who says it tends to affect women between 25 and 55 who try to do too many things in a short space of time.

Dr Bost says stress leads to an imbalance in the brain of the 'feel good' chemical serotonin, which leads to fatigue and an increased appetite, setting off the other symptoms.

The only way of reducing HWS is to reduce your pace of life and organise things better.

Now the British Osteopathic Association has warned that more than three-quarters of women suffer from at least one chronic health problem, compared with 48 per cent of men.

Nigel Graham, BOA president, said: "It's occurring a lot, particularly with women in London who have high-pressure jobs and who may have a young family and are trying to do everything at once - running off to the gym at lunch time and then doing the shopping before going home."

The BOA-commissioned survey questioned 2,900 people aged between 16 and 55 about their health and lifestyle.

PMT was the most common chronic ailment, suffered by 36 per cent of women, followed by sleeping difficulties (35 per cent), migraines (28 per cent), irritable bowel syndrome (17 per cent) and constipation (15 per cent).

Earlier this year a survey of 10,000 British women by Prima magazine found three-quarters had at least five symptoms of HWS. It warned that the combination of symptoms can often be a precursor to clinical depression or a more serious illness.

(source: Daily Mail)

Women are still a closed book to men

Research shows men mainly read works by other men

David Smith
Sunday May 29, 2005
The Observer

Men have finally realised what they are missing, but they still aren't all that keen to do anything about it.

This is the conclusion of a study into sex differences in reading habits, which found that, while women read the works of both sexes, men stick to books written by men. And the boys can no longer use ignorance as an excuse.

'Men clearly now know that there are some great books by women - such as Andrea Levy's Small Island - they really ought to have read and ought to consider "great" (or at least good) writing,' the report said. 'They recognise the titles and they've read the reviews. They may even have bought, or been given the books, and start reading them. But they probably won't finish them.'

The research was carried out by academics Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins of Queen Mary College, London, to mark the 10th year of the Orange Prize for Fiction, a literary honour whose women-only rule provoked righteous indignation when the competition was founded. They asked 100 academics, critics and writers and found virtually all now supported the prize.

But a gender gap remains in what people choose to read, at least among the cultural elite. Four out of five men said the last novel they read was by a man, whereas women were almost as likely to have read a book by a male author as a female. When asked what novel by a woman they had read most recently, a majority of men found it hard to recall or could not answer. Women, however, often gave several titles. The report said: 'Men who read fiction tend to read fiction by men, while women read fiction by both women and men.

'Consequently, fiction by women remains "special interest", while fiction by men still sets the standard for quality, narrative and style.'

In the survey, men were asked to name the 'most important' book by a woman written in the last two years. Brick Lane by Monica Ali and Carol Shields's Unless were frequently among the replies, but many men admitted defeat and confessed they had no idea. At least one who suggested Brick Lane admitted he had not read it.

The report added: 'Men's reading habits have altered very little since the Orange Prize burst onto the fiction scene in 1996.

Although no one would admit that the gender of the author had any influence on their choice of fictional reading-matter, men were still far less likely to have read a novel by a woman than by a man, whereas women read titles by either.

'Pressed for a preference, many men also found it much more difficult to "like" or "admire" a novel authored by a woman - for them "great" writing was male writing (oh - apart from Jane Austen, of course),' the report said.

'No wonder, then, that each year when the winner of the Orange Prize is announced a chorus of disappointment goes up from "mainstream" critics: how could such an undistinguished book have won?'

A decade ago the Orange Prize drew the scorn of many leading writers, including Kingsley Amis ('If I were a woman, I would not want to win this prize. One can hardly take the winner seriously'), and AS Byatt ('I am against anything which ghettoises women. That is my deepest feminist emotion").

The prize is now estab lished just behind the Man Booker and the Whitbread in the literary hierarchy and had huge support among survey respondents, although some still expressed ambivalence. Julie Burchill said: 'I see where it's coming from but totally understand the reasons why women don't want their novels to be entered for it.'

Jardine said: 'When pressed, men are likely to say things like: "I believe Monica Ali's Brick Lane is a really important book - I'm afraid I haven't read it." I find it most endearing that in 10 years what male readers of fiction have done is learn to pretend that they've read women's books.'

This year's £30,000 Orange Prize will be awarded on 7 June.

(Source: The Observer)

Good sex really is mind-blowing for women

Copenhagen medical conference hears of hot passions and cold feet

James Meikle, health correspondent
Tuesday June 21, 2005
The Guardian

Women may fool their sexual partners by faking orgasm, but their brains cannot lie. Reaching a proper sexual climax is, for women at least, a mind-blowing event. Large parts of their brains that deal with emotion and fear appear to shut down so that they can enjoy the thrill.

A series of experiments at the Univerity of Groningen, in the Netherlands, used brain scans to map what happened in men's and women's heads while their partners sat by their prone bodies, sexually stimulating them.

The tests involved 13 women and 11 men aged 19 to 39. Women told the researchers when they faked orgasm, but the truth was there on the scans anyway.

Professor Gert Holstege reported the findings at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, organised by the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

"The main thing we saw was deactivation in women," he said. "It was unbelievable, very pronounced. I think that is the major outcome of the study. You see extreme deactivation of large portions of the brain, especially the fear centres, the brain that controls emotions."

The main part of the brain that seemed active was the cerebellum, linked to control of movement, but scientists also think it may have an emotional role. This was active in fake orgasms too, but otherwise there was a different picture.

"If you look at women that faked orgasm you see the same kind of thing in the cerebellum, but the cortex, the conscious part of the brain, is also active," Prof Holstege said.

To reach true climax, women needed to ensure that fear and stress did not get in the way. "The deactivation of these very important parts of the brain might be the most important thing necessary to have an orgasm. If you are in a high level of anxiety it is very hard to have sex."

Men were studied in the same way, but because it typically took only 20 seconds to reach ejaculation, it was difficult for neuroscientists to obtain and interpret data. But Prof Holstege suspects that the change in brain pattern may mirror that of women.

Another part of the study in which the volunteers were stimulated without reaching orgasm showed differences in brain response however. In both sexes, an area called the amygdala, a fear centre, was deactivated, but in men, an ancient part of the brain linked to emotion, called the insula, became more active.

Other differing brain patterns between the sexes suggested that men respond differently to having their genitals stimulated. Men appeared to want to rationalise the experience by interpreting its importance, while women merely enjoyed the sensation.

"Men are seeing it as a big deal, the interpretation of what is happening is important to them," Prof Holstege said. "Women apparently do not have this idea that this is so important. With women the primary feeling is there, but not the interpretation."

The volunteers, all heterosexual and right handed, were recruited through Dutch magazines. Since it was vital for them to remain completely still in the scanner, they had to have their heads restrained, although they were free to move the rest of their bodies.

"We are neuroscientists, so we're only interested in the brain," said Prof Holstege.

There were, however, some physical matters that had to be attended to as well. "A major problem was they got cold feet, so they put socks on," he added.

Prof Holstege hopes his work may lead to treatments which lower anxiety levels and which reduce sexual dysfunction." Alcohol brings down fear levels. Everyone knows if you give alcohol to women it is easier," he said.

(Source: The Guardian)

After the 'homo' gene a 'Whore' gene!

World Medical Journal, Vol. no.2, June 2005

Medical Science, Professional Practice and Education

Twin Studies

Twin study reveals genetic role in female infidelity

A confidential survey of more than 1,600 pairs of female twins has revealed that genetic factors have a substantial impact on how likely women are to cheat on their partner and how many sexual partners they will have.

This is the first ever study to look at the genes underlying these influences in humans.

The results of the new research – led by Professor Tim Spector, Director of the Twin Research Unit at St Thomas’ Hospital, London – were revealed by Professor Spector during a press briefing at the Science Media Centre.

Female twins from the Twin Research Unit database answered a range of questions in a confidential questionnaire relating to their sexual attitudes and behaviour. They reported previous episodes of infidelity, total life-time number of sexual partners and also their attitudes towards infidelity.

The average age of respondents was 50, their average number of sexual partners was between four and five, just over 20% admitted to infidelity, 25% were divorced and 98% were heterosexual.

Professor Spector says: “Not surprisingly, the average number of sexual partners was significantly higher among respondents who had been unfaithful compared with those who had remained faithful – a mean of eight compared with four.”

Headline findings of the research study include:

• Genes are an important influence in explaining variation between women in both infidelity and number of sexual partners – with a heritability of 41% and 38% respectively.

• Further analysis of these results failed to support the hypothesis that a gene implicated in previous research into patterns of sexual behaviour among rodents

(AVPR1A or vasopressin gene) could explain the observed variation in human sexual behaviour.

• However, the study did find some evidence that genes in three other chromosomal areas (chromosomes 3, 7, 20) could be implicated.

• In contrast, attitudes to infidelity are not influenced to any significant degree by genetic factors – environmental factors including society, education or religion prevail.

• Believing infidelity was wrong in principle prevailed even in a significant proportion of those women who admitted

having been unfaithful, highlighting the distinction between attitudes and actual behaviour. Professor Spector says: “By demonstrating the heritability of female infidelity and number of sexual partners in humans, this study justifies additional genetic and molecular research on human sexual behaviour.”

“The fact that psychosocial traits such as number of sexual partners and infidelity appear to behave as other common complex genetic traits in humans, in that they have a heritable component, lends support to evolutionary psychologists’ theories on the origins of human behaviour.”

Professor Spector believes that the logical conclusion of his team’s new research may be that infidelity and other sexual behaviours persist because they have been evolutionarily advantageous for women.

(Source: World Medical Journal)

Infidelity genes in 20% of women

Hindustan Times

Vijay Dutt

London, November 26

Men may have finally found a watertight defence for infidelity. So far, they are the ones always accused of jumping into bed with new partners. Now, a study has established that one in every five women can't resist cheating on her husband or boyfriend. Experts blame it on a set of infidelity genes".

The study was conducted in London but its results could be equally relevant for India, as the women included in the research were broadly representative of the population in social class, race and religion.

The study, led by Tim Spector at St. Thomas' Hospital, involved 1,600 pairs of female twins aged 19 to 83 and revealed that genetic factors have same influence over infidelity as they do over medical conditions. It has put the heritable element of female infidelity at 41 percent.

Feminine sixth sense just a myth

the Guardian

Tim Radford, science editor
Tuesday April 12, 2005

Women are not more intuitive than men: they just think they are. A national internet experiment involving more than 15,000 people has confirmed that women are no better than men at spotting which smile is a fake, which sincere.

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, challenged Britons to log on to a website, (www.sciencefestival.co.uk), study a series of partly masked photographs, and decide which smiles were from the heart, which ones calculated.

Asked before the challenge, 77% of women classified themselves as "highly intuitive". Only 58% of men made the same claim. But performance did not match self-perception. Men spotted 72% of the genuine smiles, women 71%.

Feminine intuition failed even more signally when it came to reading men's faces. Men, it turned out, could correctly detect 76% of the fake female smiles.

Women spotted only 67% of the dissembled smirks by the opposite sex.

"These findings question the notion that women really are more intuitive than men. Some previous research has found evidence for female intuition, but perhaps over time men have become more in touch with their intuitive side," Prof Wiseman said.

The participants found it hardest to unmask fake smiles when the mouth was covered.

(Source: The Guardian)

Using brain scans to figure out what women want

http://www.azcentral.com/imgs/azclogo.gif
By PAUL ELIAS
AP Biotechnology Writer
Sept. 7, 2005 01:20 AM

SAN FRANCISCO - Drug companies make $2.5 billion a year selling Viagra, Cialis and Levitrato help men enjoy sex. Since more women suffer from sexual dysfunction than men, developing a drug that could double those sales would seem to be a no-brainer.

Yet the pharmaceutical industry has failed women miserably - there isn't a single sexual dysfunction drug on the market that can help them. Pfizer Inc. last year abandoned an eight-year Viagra study involving 3,000 women, conceding that its famous blue pill only works for men.

"I hate to say it, but women are much more complex than men," said Beverly Whipple, the sex researcher who co-wrote "The G-Spot."

Viagra and its two competitors are rather blunt instruments - they work simply, by increasing blood flow down below. Women who take the drugs tend to experience the same physical effect, but this alone rarely satisfies them.

"You are not going to make a product by looking at what works in men and apply it to women," said Amy Allina, program director at the National Women's Health Network in Washington D.C. "That does reflect, in part, a lack of knowledge of what is underlying women's sexual problems."

The latest research - being done by academics, rather than commercial drug companies - suggests a neurological solution is needed. Because when it comes to achieving orgasms, women are more affected by mood, self-esteem and other issues of the psyche than men.

While Pfizer and other pharmaceutical titans have abandoned the pursuit of a Viagra for females as too complicated, a growing number of university researchers are reporting progress with the help of brain scanners and other technology.

Yes, they're watching women's brains while they have orgasms. And they're coming to some interesting conclusions.

For example, by studying paralyzed women who can still experience orgasm, they discovered that for women, the vagus nerve appears to be quite important, and therefore may be a promising target for drugs. This nerve - which is outside the spinal cord - carries information to areas of the brain that control mood.

"We basically found the areas of the brains that are activated in orgasm in women," said Barry Komisaruk, who worked with Whipple on this research, which is being funded by the federal government and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

Brain scans measure the blood flow of research volunteers, whose heads are strapped tightly down inside the noisy machines. When brain cells start firing in a part of the brain that governs a particular emotion or activity, they need more oxygen, which is carried by the blood. During a brain scan, active regions of the brain can be seen lighting up on a computer monitor.

The scans reveal something else about women - during orgasms, the pain centers in their brains shut down, and pleasure centers - the same ones that become active when people ingest cocaine - light up.

But a big problem with these scans - done through magnetic resonance imaging - is that no machine yet built is designed to simultaneously monitor both the brain and the body. And even if they could, the images' clarity would be muddied by "background noise" such as hand movements.

That's why Komisaruk is currently studying the brains of women who can self-stimulate purely through thought - an apparently rare attribute that eliminates the noise - as he seeks to find out exactly what makes women tick during sex.

"The strange thing is that everyone knows that it all happens between the ears and not between the legs," said Gert Holstege, a leading sexual researcher at Groningen University in The Netherlands.

In June, Holstege published one of the first studies that mapped brain activity during orgasm for men and women, who were stimulated by their partners.

Among other results, Holstege found that the part of the brain thought to control fear and anxiety - the amygdala - deactivated during orgasm for both women and men.

He acknowledged that his data for men is a little suspect - however - because they don't orgasm long enough to take a proper brain scan.

Brain scanning technology has been available for close to 20 years, but is only now being used to study sex. Researchers attribute the delay to several factors, including managerial skepticism and government reluctance to fund much of the work.

"In the United States people are little more reserved when it comes to sex than in the Netherlands," said Holstege. He said that his U.S. colleagues told him they'd be afraid to propose such a project to their own bosses.

Sex research using brain scans is only just getting started, and scientists warn that any potential new drugs - or even better diagnoses of sexual dysfunction - are years away.

Still, many researchers - including those at the Kinsey Institute for Research, Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University - see brain scans as an important tool.

"We tried to come to conclusions about the brain through all kinds of detours," said Erick Janssen, a Kinsey researcher. "This is a much more direct way to do it."

(Source: azcentral.com)