Health Effects
In addition to its central role in reproduction, some studies have made claims that semen may have certain beneficial effects on human health:
- Antidepressant: One study suggested that vaginal absorption of semen could act as an antidepressant; the study compared two groups of women, one of which used condoms and the other did not.
- Cancer prevention: Studies suggested that seminal plasma might reduce breast cancer by "not less than 50 percent." This effect is attributed to its glycoprotein and selenium content, with apoptosis being induced by TGF-Beta. A related urban legend parodied these findings and claimed that performing fellatio at least three times a week reduced the risk of breast cancer.
- Preeclampsia prevention: It has been hypothesized that substances in semen condition a mother's immune system to accept the "foreign" proteins found in sperm as well as the resulting fetus and placenta, keeping blood pressure low and thereby reducing the risk of preeclampsia. A study shows that oral sex and swallowing semen may help make a woman's pregnancy safer and more successful, because she is absorbing her partner's antigens.
- Increased libido: Another hypothesis has emerged that absorption of the testosterone contained in semen through a woman's vaginal walls during sexual intercourse (or even through the act of swallowing semen) may increase her sex drive.
Other studies claim adversarial effects:
- Cancer worsening: seminal plasma has prostaglandin elements that could accelerate the development of an already existing cervical cancer.
Read more about this topic: Semen
Famous quotes containing the words health and/or effects:
“Men’s hearts are cold. They are indifferent. Not all the coal that is dug warms the world. It remains indifferent to the lives of those who risk their life and health down in the blackness of the earth; who crawl through dark, choking crevices with only a bit of lamp on their caps to light their silent way; whose backs are bent with toil, whose very bones ache, whose happiness is sleep, and whose peace is death.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“Perspective, as its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp huts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through aerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish over as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and artificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other painful effects when presented in our personal experience.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)