Having Sex Less Frequently Could Lead To An Earlier Menopause, Study Finds

While the study didn’t look at the reason for the link, the authors said that the physical cues of sex may signal to the body that there is a possibility of getting pregnant. But for women who aren’t having sex frequently in midlife, an earlier menopause may make more biological sense.

“If you’re not going to reproduce, there’s no point ovulating — you’re better off using that energy elsewhere,” said Megan Arnot, the lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in evolutionary anthropology at University College London.

During ovulation, a woman is more susceptible to disease because the immune system is impaired, Arnot said. If pregnancy was unlikely due to a lack of sexual activity, that means it wouldn’t be beneficial for the body to allocate energy to the ovulation process.



Instead, she said, the findings support the “Grandmother Hypothesis,” a theory that suggests the menopause originally evolved in humans to reduce “reproductive conflict” between different generations of women and to ensure their grandchildren survived and thrived.

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“There may be a biological energetic trade-off between investing energy into ovulation and investing elsewhere — such as keeping active by looking after grandchildren,” Arnot said.

The research is based on the US Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, a unique look at women’s midlife health that started in 1996. The nearly 3,000 women in the data set had an average age of 45 when the study started, had two children on average, and were mostly married or in a relationship or living with their partner.
Some 45% of the women experienced a natural menopause at the age of 52. Interviews were carried out over a 10-year period.

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