They say it’s a privilege to die doing something you love, and while it may have been premature (pardon the pun) one man in East Africa was granted that honour recently. The man, from Malawi, is living on in global headlines after a postmortem revealed he died from an “extreme orgasm”.
According to a report in The Sun, the man, who was 35, was getting hot and heavy with a sex worker when he lost consciousness and died. A postmortem report listed the cause of death as being due to “excessive orgasm which caused blood vessels in the brain to rupture”.
The bizarre incident got us wondering how often an exciting romp leads to premature death. Thankfully a 2016 study published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior answered our question for us.
The study claimed that having sex frequently puts older men at higher risk for heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. In fact, the researchers found having sex once a week or more frequently could double the risk of experiencing cardiovascular events. For older women, however, good sex may actually lower the risk of hypertension.
“Strikingly, we find that having sex once a week or more puts older men at a risk for experiencing cardiovascular events that is almost two times greater than older men who are sexually inactive,” lead author Hui Liu said. “Moreover, older men who found sex with their partner extremely pleasurable or satisfying had higher risk of cardiovascular events than men who did not feel so.”
As to why older men were more at risk, Liu said it came down to ageing, revealing older men find it more difficult to have or maintain an erection, so when it does happen, it’s actually using up a lot of their energy.
“Because older men have more difficulties reaching orgasm for medical or emotional reasons than do their younger counterparts, they may exert themselves to a greater degree of exhaustion and create more stress on their cardiovascular system in order to achieve climax,” she explained, adding use of medication to improve sexual function may also play a role.
“Although scientific evidence is still rare, it is likely that such sexual medication or supplements have negative effects on older men’s cardiovascular health,” Liu said.
Meanwhile, another study, which was published in the National Library of Medicine in 1999, found death during sexual intercourse was pretty common in over-60 men that have a history of heart issues. Having sex with a prostitute was also an important factor. “In most cases sudden death occurred during the sexual act with a prostitute,” the study read.
And another study, which looked at the “cultural issues, myths and superstitious beliefs surround stroke and death following sexual intercourse in Africa”, found sex-related deaths in men were more common with extramarital relationships.
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