Trying to find the secret to a better sex life? Well, the hidden ingredient might just be in your diet…
It looks like vegetarians might be having the last laugh when it comes to bedroom matters.
A new study has found that people who consume tofu and other plant-based foods might enjoy a better sex life than meat-eaters.
It’s thought that certain plant products can influence hormone levels and heighten sexual activity.
Right, and that’s tofu on next week’s shopping list…
The research, published in the journal Hormones and Behaviour, is the first to observe the connection between sex hormones phytoestrogens, found in plants, and behaviour in wild primates.
The study focused on a group of red colobus monkeys, but experts say us humans are very likely experience similar effects from the hormones.
Over 11 months, Michael Wasserman and his team followed a group of red colobus monkeys in Uganda’s Kibale National Park and recorded what the primates ate.
The researchers focused on aggression, which they measured by the number of chases and fights, the frequency of mating and time spent grooming, and the scientists also collected faeces samples to assess changes in hormone levels.
They found that with the altered hormone levels the monkeys spent more time having sex, and less time grooming.
“That’s what I’m looking for too!” we can hear women shouting across the country.
To put the steak on or not?!
Wasserman told Sciencelive: “By altering hormone levels and social behaviors important to reproduction and health, plants may have played a large role in the evolution of primate, including human, biology in ways that have been underappreciated.”
In a separate study Researchers from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, have found that men believe eating meat makes them more manly.
Professor Hank Rothgerber , who has published his research in the journal Men and Masculinity, said that meat eating was linked with ‘manhood, power, and virility’.
Looks like we have to make the choice: to put the steak on or not…
