Not tonight, dear, I'm an insomniac: Lack of sleep kills men's sex drive, study finds
By Paul Bentley
4th June 2011
For the long-suffering wives of workaholic men it may well come as no surprise.
Not getting enough sleep at night kills men's sex drives, a study has found.
According to researchers at the University of Chicago, those who sleep for less than five hours a night for periods of longer than a week have significantly lower levels of testosterone than those who get a full night's rest.
And with testosterone affecting men's libido and energy levels, those who miss out on sleep are much more likely to be put off sex.
The affect is so drastic it reduces the hormone to levels more akin to someone 15 years older, they reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
'Low testosterone levels are associated with reduced well-being and vigour, which may also occur as a consequence of sleep loss,' Eve Van Cauter, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago said.
'As research progresses, low sleep duration and poor sleep quality are increasingly recognised as endocrine disruptors.'
Researchers took ten men aged 24 who were lean and in good health and varied the amount of sleep they were allowed to take at night.
For three nights, the men slept for ten hours, but this was reduced to less than five for the following eight days.
On the final day of each period of the experiment, they collected blood samples from the men every half an hour for 24 hours.
Alarmingly, they found that testosterone levels were significantly reduced after just one week of sleep deprivation.
Five hours of rest reduced levels of the hormone by between ten and 15 per cent, with the lowest levels recorded in the afternoon.
The participants were also asked to keep a log of how they felt throughout the week.
They, unsurprisingly, reported a decline in their mood, vigour and sense of well-being on little sleep.
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