"Are Apples the Best Food for a Better Sex Life in Women?"
The creation and promotion of
“female sexual dysfunction” as a mental disorder seems
like a textbook case of disease-mongering
by the pharmaceutical industry harkening
back to the first DSM, psychiatry’s diagnosis manual,
which listed frigidity as a mental disorder,
along, of course, with homosexuality.
The latest manifestation is hypoactive
sexual desire disorder,
a disease invented by drug companies.
It’s like when Prozac was about to go off patent,
the company sponsored the creation
of new mental illness to market
a drug called Sarafem,
which was simply Prozac repacked
into a pink capsule.
The condition previously known
as shyness was branded as
“social anxiety disorder;”
so they could get kids on Paxil.
There are certainly women who are troubled by low libido,
but there is no reliable scientific evidence that
hypoactive sexual desire disorder
is a real medical condition.
And, women can get diagnosed with it
even with a normal libido.
A woman highly interested in sex,
just not (for whatever reason) with her current partner,
can still qualify for the diagnosis—and the drug.
Even a woman who is perfectly satisfied
with her sex life may still qualify if her partner isn’t.
Our story begins in 2009, when a drug company tried
to get a failed antidepressant called Flibanserin approved
to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder.
The only problem...?
It didn’t work.
It was resubmitted again after more study,
and was still rejected, as was the appeal.
But, in 2015, the FDA approved the drug.
What changed?
Nothing about its efficacy;
it didn’t work any better.
What changed is that the drug company
that bought it helped launch
an astroturf fake grassroots advocacy group,
“Even the Score,” which lobbied
for approval under a feminist rubric.
Men have their drugs;
why don’t women get any sex drugs,
which was exposed as kind of a bitter irony.
But hey, within 48 hours of FDA approval,
the drug was sold for a cool billion in cash.
Very satisfying for the drug company,
but what about the women
who take the drug
(now sold as Addyi)?
Not much.
The drug just doesn’t work as advertised.
Yes, it may stimulate monkeys
to groom each other more.
But, when researchers dug up
the unpublished data about the drug,
any clinical benefit was found
to be marginal,
and the drug was found to have
significant adverse side effects.
Besides being ineffective, it can be dangerous.
Combining it with alcohol can cause
dangerous hypotension and fainting—
problems so serious that the FDA put a black box warning on it,
its most serious safety alert,
on the label (that of course no one reads).
Even without alcohol, it can cause severe drops
in blood pressure levels and cause
sudden prolonged unconsciousness.
Now, serious side effects
might be acceptable
in some kind of cancer
wonder drug or something,
but are entirely unacceptable in a drug
given to healthy women
for an invented condition.
Are there any safe and natural solutions?
Well, there’s lots of studies
on diet and men’s sexual health,
but what about women’s?
I’ve previously explored the evidence
about women with high cholesterol levels
reporting diminished sexual function
across a number of dimensions.
This could explain why a more plant-based diet,
rich in a variety of whole plant foods,
might be effective in ameliorating
sexual function issues in women,
as it does in men,
more whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fruit,
and less meat, dairy, and sugar
associated with a reduced risk of erectile dysfunction,
because the anatomy and physiology
of sexual responses are actually
quite similar between the two;
they can have a similar effect.
You can measure clitoral engorgement
with fancy MRI techniques within
minutes of exposure to an erotic video.
And, we know now that lubrication
is all about blood flow too.
Within the sexually aroused vagina,
it’s the hydrostatic pressure
from all the additional pelvic
blood flow that forces fluid
to leak out onto the surface
as the vaginal lubrication.
So, how can we improve blood flow?
Well, the flavonoid phytonutrients
in cocoa can help open up arteries,
increasing pulse wave amplitude
from this at baseline to this,
after drinking cocoa for four days,
peaking at about 90 minutes after consumption.
So, can that Valentine’s Day chocolate
make a difference?
Women who eat chocolate do tend
to have higher female sexual
function index scores,
but the effect disappeared once
age was taken into account.
So, despite all the potential biological
mechanisms supporting a role
for chocolate as an aphrodisiac food,
the study failed to show a benefit.
One would assume that chocolate
could improve blood flow,
but remember that was with cocoa powder.
Maybe the fat and sugar in chocolate
is counteracting the benefits.
What are some whole food sources of flavonoids?
Well, onions have a lot.
And indeed, fresh onion juice enhances
copulatory behavior—in rats,
but for those of us less interested
in increasing the percentage of ejaculating rats,
and looking for something other
than onion juice for our hot date,
how about that apple?
There wasn’t a study addressing
the potential correlation between
daily apple consumption and women’s sexual function…
until now.
The title kind of gives it away,
but women were split into regular daily apple consumers
versus those consuming less than an apple a day,
and the hundreds of apple eaters
in the study scored significantly
higher on the female sexual function index.
Now, note they only included women
eating unpeeled apples,
because the phytonutrients are
concentrated in the peel:
so, we don’t know if there’s a link
with peeled apples.
And, this was just an observational study;
so, further studies will be necessary
to clarify the relationship
between apple intake and female sexuality.
However, the present data can allow
the “development of future research
for identifying new compounds
and food supplements to use
in female sexuality recovery.”
Uh, or, you can just try
eating an apple.