Feeling deprived? No roll in the hay recently? If so, don’t despair, tonight may be the night.

However, the Journal of The American Medical Association reports that a session of steamy “amour” can be a dangerous pastime. But could it help The Toronto Maple Leafs to win The Stanley Cup?

Dr. Issa Dahabreh, researcher at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, studied 6,000 people in their 50s and 60s who were sexually inactive and had suffered heart problems.

She asked, “What were you doing two hours before the cardiac event?”

She discovered that some had gotten lucky and were involved in sexual intercourse after considerable abstinence. But they also suffered a 2.7 fold increase in the risk of sudden heart attack.

Looking at it another way, if 10,000 inactive people suddenly got frisky in bed only one or two would suffer a heart attack during the next year. During that time there’s also a greater chance of dying in a car accident. Faced with either succumbing to a coronary after sex or death from a car accident, most people would quickly jump into bed. Besides, inactive people can decrease this risk by gradually becoming more active prior to sexual intercourse.

The fact is that sex is good for your health whether you’re 25 or 85. And you don’t have to hang from the chandelier to enjoy sex and get the medical benefit.

Sex even helps to control the obesity epidemic. A frisky sexual workout three times a week can burn up to 600 calories or 31,200 calories a year. This is the same as jogging 260 miles! Besides, sex doesn’t cause arthritis of the knees which happens in 50% of joggers. So who would want to jog?

In women, sex increases the level of estrogen that protects against heart disease and osteoporosis (brittle bones). Sex can also help to strengthen pelvic muscles and improve bladder control.

During orgasm in men, the muscles around the prostate contract which then excretes prostrate fluid and helps decrease the risk of chronic prostatitis. And in one clinical study frequent male ejaculations decreased the risk of prostate cancer.

Sex can also have an effect on the risk of heart attack and how long we live. One study at Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland, showed that men who have sex three or more times a week cut their risk of heart attack in half.

Researchers at Queen’s University also reported in the British Medical Journal that men with the greatest frequency of sex enjoyed a 50% lower death rate than those less sexually active. The French may be right when they refer to orgasm as “La petite mort”, or the little death. They quickly add that a little death now helps to postpone the big one!

But could sex help the Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup after 44 years? Emmanuele A. Jannini, Professor of Endocrinology at L’Aquila University in Italy reports that sex stimulates the production of testosterone which boosts aggression, perhaps the right prescription for the floundering Leafs.

Dr. Beverly Whipple, associate professor at Rutgers University, says that sex can help to ease the pain of an injury-riddled team. During sex the level of the hormone oxytocin increases to five times its normal level. This in turn releases endorphins, the body’s own morphine. So sex can cure more than headaches for the Leafs.

Another researcher, Barry Komisaruk, a physiologist at Rutgers University in New Jersey has found that sex blocks the release of a neuropeptide which transmits muscle pain, the last thing a player needs on a long shift.

Ian Shier, a sports expert at McGill University in Montreal, tested athletes on a treadmill 12 hours after sex. He says that sex does not affect strength or endurance.

So along with all the hockey analysts who have recommendations for success here is my prescription. Rx: To hockey managers. Let players take partners on road trips for a little bedtime activity. This would relax an uptight team playing before a hockey-mad crowd.

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