Addyi (flibanserin), the drug marketed for “hypoactive sexual desire disorder,” is ineffective and unsafe. What about dietary approaches for feminine sexual dysfunction?
“The creation and promotion of ‘female sexual dysfunction’ [as a mental disorder] is a textbook case of disease mongering by the pharmaceutical industry,” harkening again to the primary version of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychiatry’s prognosis handbook, which listed frigidity as a psychological dysfunction, together with homosexuality. The newest manifestation is “hypoactive sexual desire disorder,” a illness invented by drug corporations. When Prozac was about to go off patent, for instance, “the company sponsored the creation of the condition premenstrual dysphoric disorder, depicted as a more serious form of premenstrual syndrome,” and used this new so-called psychological sickness to market a drug known as Sarafem, “which was simply repackaged Prozac” in a pink capsule. “The condition previously known as shyness was condition-branded as social anxiety disorder, designed to provide a marketing edge for Paxil…”
“There are certainly women who are troubled by low libido, but there is no reliable scientific evidence that hypoactive sexual desire disorder is a real medical condition.” And, ladies can get identified with it even with a traditional libido. “A woman who is highly interested in sex, just not with her current partner, can still qualify for a diagnosis”—and the drug. Even a “woman who is happy with her sex life may still qualify for a diagnosis of hypoactive sexual desire disorder if her partner is dissatisfied…”
“The story began in 2009 when [drug company] Boehringer Ingelheim first applied for approval of flibanserin, a failed antidepressant, to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women.” There was an issue, although. It didn’t work. The software was resubmitted after extra examine and was rejected once more, as was the enchantment. But, in 2015, the FDA permitted the drug. “What changed? Nothing about efficacy. The resubmission included no new benefit data.” The drug didn’t work any higher. What modified is that the corporate that purchased the drug “helped launch a new advocacy group, Even the Score.” The pretend grassroots group lobbied “journalists, women’s groups, Congress, and the FDA” for approval, employing “the feminism argument to push for…approval on grounds of equality (men have their drugs; we want ours), when feminism in in fact a reason to object to flibanserin. How can it be feminist for doctors to tell women what’s normal and prescribe pills to control their sexual desire?” But, “within 48 hours of FDA approval, flibanserin was sold…for about $1 billion in cash. Very satisfying.” Very satisfying for the drug firm, “but what about the women who take flibanserin,” now bought as Addyi? Not a lot. The drug simply doesn’t work as marketed.
It could stimulate monkeys to groom one another extra, however when researchers dug up the unpublished information concerning the drug, any medical profit was found to be “marginal, with statistically and clinically significant adverse [side] effects.” Indeed, “besides being ineffective in many women, flibanserin is a dangerous drug.” Combining it with alcohol “can cause dangerous hypotension and syncope [fainting]—problems so serious that the FDA put a black box warning, its most serious safety alert, on the label,” which, sadly, hardly anybody reads. In truth, “even without alcohol, flibanserin can cause severe drops in blood pressure levels and sudden prolonged unconsciousness.” Now, some of these severe uncomfortable side effects “might be acceptable in a cancer drug, but they are entirely unacceptable in a drug given to healthy women for an invented condition.”
Are there any protected and pure options? There are a number of research on food regimen and males’s sexual well being, however what about ladies’s? As I focus on in my video Flashback Friday: Are Apples the Best Food for a Better Sex Life in Women?, analysis indicates that ladies with excessive levels of cholesterol report diminished sexual operate throughout a lot of dimensions. This may explain why a extra plant-based food regimen, wealthy in a wide range of entire plant meals, “might be effective in ameliorating sexual function issues in women,” because it does in males—certainly, extra entire grains, beans, greens, and fruit, and fewer meat, dairy, and sugar have been related to a decreased threat of erectile dysfunction—as a result of the anatomy and physiology of sexual responses are truly fairly related between women and men. As you possibly can see beneath and at 4:21 in my video, utilizing fancy MRI strategies, you possibly can measure clitoral engorgement inside minutes of publicity to an erotic video.
And, we now know that lubrication is all about blood move, too. “Within the sexually aroused vagina,” the hydrostatic strain from all the extra pelvic blood move forces fluid “to leak onto the surface wall of the vagina as the vaginal lubrication.” How can we enhance blood move? Well, the flavonoid phytonutrients in cocoa can help open up arteries, growing pulse wave amplitude after consuming cocoa for 4 days, peaking at about 90 minutes after consumption, as you possibly can see beneath and at 4:54 in my video.
So, can that Valentine’s Day chocolate make a distinction? Women who eat chocolate do are likely to have greater feminine sexual operate index scores in comparison with those that don’t eat chocolate, however the impact disappeared as soon as age was taken into consideration. “Despite all the potential biological mechanisms supporting a role for chocolate as an aphrodisiac food,” the examine failed to point out a profit. One would assume that chocolate may enhance blood move, however do not forget that was with cocoa powder. Maybe the fats and sugar in chocolate counteract the advantages. What are some entire meals sources of flavonoids? As you possibly can see beneath and at 5:35 in my video, onions have rather a lot. Indeed, recent onion juice enhances copulatory habits—in rats. For these of us much less in “increasing the percentage of ejaculating rats” and in search of one thing apart from onion juice for our sizzling date, how about an apple?
There was “not a study addressing the potential correlation between daily apple consumption and women’s sexual function” till…now. Women have been break up into two teams, both common each day apple shoppers or these consuming lower than an apple a day. The outcome? The a whole bunch of apple eaters in the examine scored considerably greater on the feminine sexual operate index.
Note that the researchers solely included ladies who ate unpeeled apples, as a result of the phytonutrients are concentrated in the peel, so we don’t know if there’s a hyperlink with peeled apples. And, this was solely an observational examine, so “further studies will be necessary to clarify…the relationship between apple intake and female sexuality…However, the present data can allow the development of future research for identifying new compounds and food supplements to use in female sexuality recovery.” Okay…or you possibly can simply strive consuming an apple.
The psychiatry career is notorious for colluding with drug corporations to invent new psychological problems. I’ve some movies already scripted in the queue on “orthorexia.” Subscribe in the event you haven’t already to get notified so that you don’t miss it.
I understand how upsetting this video is, exposing the stranglehold Big Pharma has on the psychological well being career. That isn’t the top of the story, although. Check out Do Antidepressant Drugs Really Work?.
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