Abstract
Nearly one in three people in the U.S. will develop heart failure (HF), characterized by fluid retention (edema) in the lungs and elsewhere. This leads to difficult breathing, deterioration of physical capacity, restriction of normal activities and death. There is little data about the safety and effects of sexual interactions in patients with HF. We tested whether a lack of sexual interactions affected pathophysiological outcomes in a pre-clinical mouse model of dilated cardiomyopathy that recapitulates the progressive stages of human HF. Male mice were randomly given access to, or deprived from, sexual interactions with female mice, which were confirmed by videography and generation of offspring. Cohousing with access to sexual interactions markedly prolonged survival, while cohousing without access to sexual activity did not. Sexual interactions improved systolic function, reduced HF-associated edema, altered transcription of heart contractile protein genes and decreased plasma testosterone levels. To determine whether testosterone levels contributed to survival, testosterone levels were experimentally reduced. Reduction of testosterone levels significantly prolonged survival. Taken together, in mice with dilated cardiomyopathy, sexual activity altered cardiac contractile gene transcription, improved systolic function, reduced edema and prolonged survival which may be in part due to lower testosterone levels.
Highlights
Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a major cause of severe heart failure (HF), which is characterized by retention of fluids in the lungs and elsewhere, leading to difficulty with breathing, deterioration of physical capacity, restriction of normal daily activities and death [1,2,3]
To propagate DCM mice, male DCM mice were bred with congenic, female non-transgenic without DCM, because similar to humans, pregnancy in female DCM mice is associated with significant cardiovascular stress and fatality [24]
As we monitored these mice, we found that male DCM mice with sexual interactions (DCM+S) due to co-housing with female mice lived significantly longer (Figure S1A) than DCM mice that were co-housed with male mice and had no access to female sexual interactions (DCM-S)
Summary
Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a major cause of severe heart failure (HF), which is characterized by retention of fluids (edema) in the lungs and elsewhere, leading to difficulty with breathing, deterioration of physical capacity, restriction of normal daily activities and death [1,2,3]. Mice with DCM pass through all of these stages (Figure 1A), from normal health (Stage A) to progressively declining contractile function, increasing heart dilation (Stage B), to the development of edema or fluid retention (Stage C) with increases in associated biomarkers (atrial natriuretic peptide, ANP and B-type natriuretic peptide, BNP, etc.), to the onset of severe debilitating HF (Stage D) with left atrial appendage thrombus formation (LAAT) and death [13,19,21]. In this study we examined the effect of deprivation from sexual activity on pathophysiological outcomes in translationally relevant mouse model of DCM-HF that recapitulates the progressive stages of human HF [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. We show that access to sexual interaction improves heart function, slows HF development, alters cardiac contractile gene expression and prolongs life in mice with DCM
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call