According to the American Cancer Society, around 1 in 44 men face prostate cancer-related death. What happens to your prostate when you stop having sex, then, is of importance. Per a 2016 study published in the journal European Urology, ejaculating more than 20 times in a month reduced the participants’ (who were in their 20s and 40s) risk of prostate cancer by around 20%, when compared with the subjects who ejaculated just 4-7 times a month. A 2017 study published in Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations had similar results for the 30- to 39-year-old participants.
Professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Lorelei Mucci (who was involved in the 2016 study), told Fatherly that one possible explanation is the prostate stagnation hypothesis, the idea that without frequent ejaculation (whether by sex or masturbation), men might accumulate potential carcinogenic secretions in their prostate, thereby increasing their risk of cancer.
Sex also offers early death-related protection for women. According to the director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital, Dr. Irwin Goldstein (via Healthline), research shows that “women who have vaginal intercourse often have less risk of breast cancer than those who don’t. [It’s] pretty interesting and exciting and needs to be studied more,” she said. Per statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 42,000 women and 500 men die of breast cancer every year. Apart from cancer, having sex cuts your early death risk in other ways too.
