Australian researchers have made an important scientific breakthrough! There is an extremely urgent new castration side effect that can be very dangerous to your health! This is it folks, the deadly truth behind castration!

Fend Off Dementia with Sex, Crosswords and a Run (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtm ... ID=8109384)

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Sex, cryptic crosswords and a good run could help ward off dementia and other degenerative conditions by stimulating new brain cells, an Australian researcher said on Thursday. Perry Bartlett, a professor at the University of Queensland's Brain Institute, said mental and physical exercise helped create and nurture new nerve cells in the brain, keeping it functional and warding off diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

"Perhaps one should run a long distance and do the cryptic crossword, " Bartlett told Australian radio.

He said a chemical called prolactin appeared to promote new cells in the brain and could be found in high levels in pregnant women.

"Prolactin levels also go up during sex as well. So one could think of a number of more entertaining activities than running in order to regulate the production of nerve cells," Bartlett said.

So now you know the truth! No sex means no new brain cells! And without new brain cells you'll develop....umm..... something. I forget exactly what will happen, but it's extremely important! It has to be important with all these exclamation marks here! Right?! So go out and have lots and lots of sex!

And remember, you don't have an overactive sex drive, you're just keeping your brain in shape.

Like all such announcements of “NEW” medical breakthroughs, I would take this with a very large grain of salt. Time after time, there’s an announcement that “scientific research” has discovered that X is good for you or that Y is bad for you. The next reported discovery “proves” that it’s just the opposite.

Remember, too, that there’s a strong cultural bias toward sex in general being “good”. That can’t be discounted as skewing any interpretation of the results of the research.

I would want to see some information on individuals who have various levels of sexual activity. There are also enough individuals with extremely low levels of sex hormones in their systems – and not just members of the Eunuch Archive. There is anecdotal evidence from the period before the invention of synthetic hormones – the Italian castrati lived much longer than intact Italian males of the same social class (research reported by Hans Fritz). They also stayed mentally alert according to the available data. The reports on Chinese eunuchs and those of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires are similar.

I would tend to ignore this single report until there’s a lot more information out there. Maybe when the FDA approves Prolactin pills or injections to enhance brain function, but probably not before, would I consider doing anything different from what I already enjoy.

Sorry, this was meant as more of a jest than anything.

As the article states, even things like crosswords may help.