New Scientific Finding: Stress Causes Sexual Dysfunction
University of California: Berkeley researchers have found what they think is a critical and, until now, missing piece of the puzzle about how stress causes sexual dysfunction and infertility. Scientists know that stress boosts levels of stress hormones - glucocorticoids such as cortisol - that inhibit the body's main sex hormone, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), and subsequently suppresses sperm count, ovulation and sexual activity.
The new research shows that stress also increases brain levels of a reproductive hormone named gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone, or GnIH, discovered nine years ago in birds and known to be present in humans and other mammals. This small protein hormone, a so-called RFamide-related peptide (RFRP), puts the brakes on reproduction by directly inhibiting GnRH.
The common thread appears to be the glucocorticoid stress hormones, which not only suppress GnRH but boost the suppressor GnIH - a double whammy for the reproductive system.
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