Intermittent Fasting is an Aphrodisiac

A Hungry Mouse is a Horny Mouse No Matter His Age

We’ve all heard how quiet a church mouse can be, but who knew it was getting laid so often and for so many years? And how do we humans get in on the fun? According to a recent international study, all we must do is eat like a mouse. And then stop eating like a mouse. The secret to endless libido energy at any age, at least in the male mouse, is “intermittent fasting.”

“We are interested in the effects of fasting on aging,” explained Dr. Dan Ehninger, lead author of the German Center for Neurogenerative Diseases, to the New York Times. “Using mice as a model, we investigate the underlying biological mechanisms. Our aim is to gain insights that may also be relevant to humans.” According to Ehninger, “A lack of sexual desire is not necessarily perceived as problematic – but some people suffer from it. Fasting could potentially serve as a useful addition to existing treatment options.

What Is Intermittent Fasting?

In the modern world, the last thing most of us want to do is miss a meal, and certainly not more than one meal. This habit is not necessarily in our best interest, which is where intermittent fasting (IF) comes in. It’s not a starvation diet; it’s a pattern of eating that includes voluntary periods of fasting. When you eat, it’s not so much about what you’re eating as it is when you eat. Or, if you’re a lab mouse, when someone feeds you. In this context, fasting can consist of occasional total abstention from food or reduced intake of food.

What Does Intermittent Fasting Do?

Mammals, including humans and even the most humble mouse, depend on an essential amino acid called tryptophan to regulate libido. The body can’t make tryptophan on its own, so mammals that want to reproduce or just go through the motions need to eat food that contains it. Tryptophan doesn’t do the, shall we say, hard work on its own, though. Instead, it hands that off to a neurotransmitter called serotonin. The more serotonin present, the less interested in sex a mammal becomes. Decrease the amount of serotonin present, and it’s time to invest in mouse bassinets and traps.

To create the right conditions for mouse-to-mouse love-sweet-love during the study, researchers put male mice on a diet that included periods of intermittent fasting. This resulted in a drop in tryptophan and, as a result, an associated drop in serotonin. Ehninger and his associates had expected to study how this affected the offspring of male mice. Instead, they unexpectedly discovered that no matter what the age of the mouse, if he had been fasting, he was in a big hurry to mate and mate again.

“It was a bit of detective work to uncover the real cause,” Ehninger said. “Eventually, we realized: it is a matter of behavior. The fasting males had significantly more sexual contacts than mice that could eat freely.” That included males with age-related changes in their testes, sperm quality, and testosterone levels. Despite those disadvantages, even the elder mice more than made up for them by becoming total sluts once females of their species were introduced to their habitat.

How Much Intermittent Fasting Is Enough?

“For intermittent fasting to increase sex drive, it takes some time,” explained Dr. Yu Zhou, a Qingdao University professor involved with the mouse study. “Based on our experiments, the minimum duration appears to be somewhere between six weeks and six months.” Mice that fasted for less than that showed no change in their libido. Mice that fasted for at least six months couldn’t get sex off of their nasty mouse minds.

Why Should Humans Care About Mouse Sex?

It’s not just mice that need an occasional serotonin adjustment before they’re in the mood for love. As many as one in five men, and even more women, eventually or occasionally experience a slowdown in their sex drive, according to the Cleveland Clinic. In some cases, this develops into hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). This is not in and of itself a bad thing, but when in a romantic-sexual relationship with someone who still wants to bang, it can cause enormous stress. While medications can help, there is still so little research into HSDD that it is poorly understood.

“In view of this, I consider it very plausible that sexual desire in humans can be influenced by fasting. Possibly not only in men, but also in women, since serotonin affects their libido as well,” Ehninger opined. The next step is to determine whether the boost in mouse arousal resulted from the specific diet regime they followed or whether other types of fasting would have the same effect.