Could Oxytocin Be The Next Viagra?
Doctors at the San Diego Medical Center have found a curious side effect to oxytocin supplements, reports TIME.com.A successful but unsocial business man with Aspergers had come to them for help with his relational problems. After anti-anxiety meds failed to help with his social concerns, the doctors enrolled him in a trial treatment using an oxytocin inhaler.
Oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone”, was first linked to trust-induced positive social behaviors by neuroeconomist Paul Zak in 2004.
The man did act slightly more personable after inhaling the hormone. But, he found an even bigger change in his sex life.
TIME.com’s Maia Szalavitz reports:
“The man experienced a 46% improvement in sexual function, as measured on a standard scale, including more desire, more arousal, improved erectile function and even better orgasms. When he occasionally forgot to renew the prescription, these effects disappeared.”
It’s important to note that this was only on man’s experience, but it certainly warrants further research into the possible use of inhaled oxytocin to boost sexual function.
SmartPlanet spoke about the hormone in general to Vassar College developmental psychologist Dr. Abby Baird.
“There’s a lot of evidence from animal models,” Baird tells us, “that what it actually does is it’s an anxiolytic, it relaxes you.”
Anxiety’s been shown to play a major role in sexual dysfunction. I would bet that this may explain the man’s success with the oxytocin inhaler in the bedroom.
It’s possible that instead of boosting his sexual abilities, the hormone just reduced his self-consciousness. In doing so it may have also suppressed his sexual inhibitions, allowing his unhindered sexual self to come through.
[via TIME.com]
Photo: Kate Hiscock/Flickr
