Posted on 01/28/2005 2:26:49 AM PST by hocndoc
The Burden of Sex
For the first time, researchers have compiled a comprehensive tally of the health problems caused by sexual behavior in the United States, and it's not a pretty picture. Overall, they report that sexual behavior results in 3 times more premature death and disability in the U.S. compared to other wealthy countries. Epidemiologists have assessed the disability and death caused by sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the past, but that's only one part of the picture, says Shahul Ebrahim of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. STD infections can also increase the likelihood of a second infection, up the risk of cervical cancer, and cause infertility.
Ebrahim and colleagues reasoned that taking these factors into account, plus disabilities related to pregnancy complications and the psychological distress of unintended pregnancies, would provide a more comprehensive view of disability resulting from sexual behavior. Using data from a variety of sources, the team estimated the number of problems that could be traced back to sex for the entire U.S. population for 1998. For the same year, they calculated the number of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)--a measure of productive life lost due to premature death or disability.
The researchers found that U.S. women bear the brunt--roughly 60%--of the adverse health events and DALYs resulting from sex. About two-thirds of the DALYs for women resulted from curable infections like chlamydia and their consequences, particularly infertility, the team reports in the February issue of Sexually Transmitted Infections. For men, HIV was by far the leading bugbear, accounting for more than half of the DALYs. Overall, sexual behavior accounted for 6% of the total DALYs for the U.S. in 1998, about 3 times what's been reported for other industrialized countries.
That's probably not surprising, given the higher incidence of HIV and unintended pregnancies in the U.S., says epidemiologist Ward Cates, president of Family Health International, a nonprofit in Raleigh, North Carolina. Studies that attempt to calculate the overall health costs of certain types of behaviors are valuable tools for policy makers and educators, Cates says. The take-home message from the current study, says Ebrahim, is that the vast majority of the disability could be prevented by practicing safe sex.
--GREG MILLER
You sound like my husband. Seriously - I checked your profile to make sure he hadn't finally become a FReeper.
Did you know that a woman forms an attachment to her sexual partners and their pheromones (chemical signals that we send each other) that has been described as an "addiction" by some researchers?
Your wife will be healthier, too. Women in monogamous relationships with 3 normal paps in a row can go without the pap for 3 to 5 years. Of course, there are other reasons to get a physical more often, but she can skip one expense and worry.
The risk of HPV increases proportionally by the number of partners of the male in the relationship. She could catch the disease and it's long-term consequences from her first partner. But the more partners he has had, the higher her risk.
And besides, that's the way it's supposed to be.
I can see why older long time married couples sometimes pass within a few days of each other. I can't imagine living a life without my wife. Losing her would be like losing half of myself. This is without stifling each other, she has a job she loves, does her gym thing and volunteering and I get to do my 'puter stuff and work with alcoholics and together we both love gardening and birding.
Your marriage sounds a little like my marriage...my hubby and I have been married for 35yrs, and neither one of us can imagine life without the other....yet we dont stifle each other at all...we each have our own interests that we pursue on our own, yet have those things we love to do together....my younger boy says, hes glad we found each other, because we are both so odd and eccentric, that no one else would probably want to marry us....we are just complementary to each other, thats all...
My hubby says, if I die ahead of him, he will never live in our house again...he will just go and live forever in our RV....dont know why he feels that way, he just does...
We just hope to slip off this earth together, while happy in the RV, seeing the USA, and sampling beer, food, and the good people of this country...
This is much to be said, for being married to your true love, for most of your life...
I guess we should say it's not always "wine and roses" before the young'uns get the wrong idea. At least in our case we had to work at it, we had some rocky times especially in the first 15 years but we didn't quit. One of the main things was what did we miss? There was a whole world out there to tempt us. We really didn't mature in our marriage until the last 10 years but every argument and every hard time was well worth it to get where we are. God blessed us and we are thankful.
Well, our marriage was no bed of roses all the time either...lots of ups and downs, lots of hard times, but always lots of good times as well....I think marriage is just like the rest of life, you have to work at it, you have to expect rocky times, but you have to stick it out, if you truly love your partner...
We went through hard hard times...my husband was in the military for much of our marriage...in the infantry...always on field exercises, or TDY somewhere...I had to be both mom and dad to our boys for a good part of our marriage...then our older boy got a very bad type of leukemia, and he battled on for 15 months, and then died...that puts a strain on ones marriage...
Then we cared for my dad with cancer, and my mom with Alzheimers...while trying to raise our younger son, and get him through rough times about losing his older brother...
Marriage is often difficult, often hard, but so very worth it, if one loves ones better half, and will stick out the hard times...because better times will always come along...
I can relate to this.
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