Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Women that have low resting heart rate variability (HRV) are more likely to suffer from sexual dysfunction, according to a new study by psychologists from the University of Texas at Austin and published recently in the journal Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.
HRV, defined by the researchers as the variation in the time intervals between consecutive heart beats, can be indicative of how well people respond to physiological and environmental changes. Low resting heart rate variability had previously been linked to a variety of mental health issues including depression, anxiety, alcohol dependence, and male erectile dysfunction.
Heart rate variability is a sensitive and objective way to measure the autonomic nervous system, which is made up of both the part of the nervous system that governs the body’s fight-or-flight mechanisms (the sympathetic nervous system) and the part that governs breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary actions (the parasympathetic nervous system).
Women with low HRV likely to have trouble becoming aroused
When the body is stable, the parasympathetic nervous system should have greater effect on heart rate, the authors said. However, moderate activation of the sympathetic nervous system has been demonstrated to increase female genital arousal, leading the researchers to further investigate this link in 72 women between the ages of 18 and 39.
As lead author and UT Austin graduate researcher Amelia Stanton explained in a statement, “Because HRV has been related to many negative mental health and cardiac problems, it’s interesting to bring an established clinical marker into sex research. It allows us to look at the issue of sexual dysfunction in women in a different way.”
Stanton and her colleagues used the Female Sexual Function Index, which evaluates factors such as pain, satisfaction, and desire, using self-reported information from the study participants. They also analyzed the heart rates of the participants, and found that those with below average HRV were more likely to experience sexual dysfunction and have trouble becoming aroused.
The research team believes that heart rate could be used index of drug-related changes in sexual function. HRV is a potential risk factor for sexual dysfunction. “Physicians have a simple, low-cost and nonintrusive method to measure a woman’s risk for sexual dysfunction. It makes it easier to talk about something a little bit more private and get women the help that they need,” Stanton said.
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