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New Findings For
Improved Sexual Functioning
As reported in ScienceDaily (6/09) Can Light Therapy
Improve Your Sexual Functioning?
Although we are still far from knowing exactly where and
how the pineal suppressive role is exerted, the fact that
the gland exerts an inhibitory function on the reproductive
axis is widely accepted. In fact, the pineal seems to exert
its hormonal effect at different levels of the reproductive
axis, both at the hypothalamic-pituitary level and at the
gonadal level, where melatonin receptors have also been
found.
Furthermore, melatonin appears to increase prolactin
secretion, which may contribute to sexual dysfunction. Based
on the observations mentioned above a group of italian
investigators hypothesized that an inhibition of pineal
gland activity via a treatment with bright light could
favorably influence sexual function and pilottested the
usefulness of bright light therapy in a small sample of 9
male patients with nonorganic sexual dysfunction.
Subjects (age 39&endash;60) were consecutively recruited
in the outpatient clinic of the Urology Department of the
University of Siena Medical Center on the basis of a
diagnosis of primary (i.e. not due to another illness or to
a medication or a drug of abuse) hypoactive sexual desire
disorder (HSDD, n = 2), sexual arousal disorder (SAD, n =
6), and orgasmic disorder (OD, n = 1) and the absence of a
mood disorder, as assessed via the Mini International
Neuropsychiatric Interview. Subjects were randomly assigned
to active light treatment (ALT) or placebo light treatment
(L-PBO) and assessed at baseline and after 2 weeks of
ALT/L-PBO treatment via the Structured Clinical Interview
for DSM-IV-Sexual Disorders (SCID-S) and via a sexual
satisfaction self-report, which asked them to rate on a
scale from 1 to 10 their level of sexual satisfaction.
The ALT consisted of daily exposure to a white
fluorescent light box (Super-Lite 3S, fitted with an
ultraviolet filter and rated at 10,000 lx at a distance of 1
m from screen to cornea) for 30 min as soon as possible
after awakening, between 7.00 a.m. and 8.00 a.m. The L-PBO
was an identical light box fitted with a neutral density gel
filter to reduce light exposure to 100 lx. After 2 weeks of
treatment, 3 of the 5 patients randomized to ALT no longer
met the SCID-S criteria for a sexual disorder whereas the
sexual disorder was still present in all the 4 patients in
the L-PBO group. A significant (p = 0.001) improvement in
sexual satisfaction was observed in the ALT group, whereas
no improvement was observed in the L-PBO group (p
=0.39).
The findings of this study suggest a potentially
favorable effect of bright light therapy on primary sexual
dysfunctions. A larger study is now needed to confirm these
preliminary results and to test whether bright light therapy
may be of help for the treatment of sexual dysfunctions that
are associated with certain psychiatric illnesses, such as
major depressive disorder, or with medications that are
prescribed to treat those illnesses.
Related Information:
Light Therapy
Steel
Libido
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© 2009
Ray Allard All Rights Reserved
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