older people have sex but what makes for
people who have more satisfaction with
their sex life as they age i'm dr bina
malek urologist and pelvic surgeon and
today i'm going to talk about what
things can affect your sex life as you
age and what might be a predictor of
having more satisfaction in your sex
life when you're older if you're new
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people over the age of 65 who are more
satisfied with their sex life they
actually age more successfully and they
tend to have a better well-being overall
so having a good sex life is linked to
so many other positive factors so how do
we figure out what factors are maybe
correlated with having a better sex life
well a german study looked at people
over the course of several years they
basically took a sample that was
representative of their population in
the years of 2002 2008 and 2011 and they
sent them surveys to understand how
satisfied they were with their sex life
as well as a number of other factors
they then divided the participants into
two groups middle age which is between
the ages of 40 and 64 and older age
above 65. in each of the waves they had
somewhere between 3 500 participants to
over 5 000 so it's not a small number of
people they analyzed and they compared a
number of different things and the
things that really stood out to me as
being different were obviously people
who were older had a higher number of
illnesses there was really no difference
in the rates of depression in both
groups but interestingly when they asked
the importance of sexuality or intimacy
on a range of one to seven the groups
were about a one point difference now
what does that really mean it's unclear
but when you look at statistics they
found that it was significantly
different meaning that people who are
above 65 tended to find intimacy and
sexuality as less important than those
in middle age not surprisingly cognitive
function tended to decrease as people
aged and also the number of important
people they remained in regular contact
with tended to decrease as well the
major thing that they found was that
satisfaction with sex life did decrease
as people aged so when they looked at
all these different factors what was
associated with being less likely to be
satisfied with your sex life after the
age of 65. so it's not surprising to me
that people who either rated their
health as poor or had more illnesses or
were depressed were less likely to be
satisfied but there's three other
interesting factors that came out of
this so one is if you are lonely you're
more likely to have less satisfaction
with your sex life and that makes sense
but i think this is a real issue in the
aging population many many people are
getting more and more lonely we live so
much in a silo now everyone's in their
phones so i think if you are getting to
that age or if you have family that is
aging please encourage them to stay in
touch with their family and friends
because it can have a dramatic impact on
their health also people who found
sexuality more important were more
likely to have satisfaction and i think
that makes sense but of course if you
prioritize your sexual health then it's
more likely that you're going to be
satisfied with it or you're going to try
to find ways to be satisfied with it and
the last thing was the most interesting
to me was that women were less likely to
be satisfied with their sexual health i
think that's because you know women go
through a lot of changes after menopause
and all of those changes can sometimes
cause a lot of discomfort and dryness
and loss of libido that can all
contribute to just not having a great
desire or enjoyment when you're having
sexual activity if you're a woman or
you're partnered with a woman who's
above the age of 65 encourage them to go
see a urologist or gynecologist to talk
about these symptoms because there's so
much we can offer them and there's so
many things that we can improve their
libido with that we can improve their
discomfort with and so i'm happy to talk
more about those if you'd like to learn
more please comment below and i'm happy
to make a video more about those things
overall my takeaway from this study is
that sexual well-being is so important
just because you're above 65 doesn't
mean that sex isn't important anymore
and so i think it's important to
prioritize these issues make sure you're
living the best life you can stay as
healthy as you can so invest in your
health now whether you're young or
whether you're aging it's really
important to take that time to invest
not only in your health with more
physical activity a better diet but also
making sure you stay connected with the
people that are important to you and
avoid loneliness i realize this can be
very difficult for men specifically
because they don't connect with other
men the way women connect with other
women it can be as simple as sending
your friends a quick text saying hey how
are you i'm thinking of you and that
helps keep you bonded and makes you feel
connected i hope you guys found this
interesting and as always remember to
take care of yourself because you're
worth it
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you