Sex before sport doesn't negatively impact performance

Over the course of the Rio Olympics, 450,000 condoms were distributed around the athlete's village. This may be surprising considering the common view that abstinence from sexual activity can boost athletic performance.

These long-standing views have now been challenged by a recent analysis of current scientific evidence, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Physiology.

"Abstaining from sexual activity before athletic competition is a controversial topic in the world of sport;" said Laura Stefani, an Assistant Professor of Sports Medicine at the University of Florence, Italy, and lead author of this review;"We show no robust scientific evidence to indicate that sexual activity has a negative effect upon athletic results."

The authors sifted through hundreds of studies with the potential to provide evidence, however big or small, on the impact of sexual activity upon sport performance. After setting a number of criteria to filter out the most reliable of these studies, only nine were included in the review.

One of these found that the strength of female former athletes did not differ if they had sex the night before. Another actually observed a beneficial effect on marathon runners' performance. While these small handful of studies provided some clues about the real effects of sex on sport performance, Dr. Stefani and her colleagues were disappointed with the research on this subject to date.

"We clearly show that this topic has not been well investigated and only anecdotal stories have been reported;" explained Dr. Stefani; "In fact, unless it takes place less than two hours before, the evidence actually suggests sexual activity may have a beneficial effect on sports performance."

The review also revealed that males were more frequently investigated than females, with no comparison of effects across genders. In addition, it highlights that cultural differences in attitudes towards sexual activity may influence how much or how little impact it may have. Dr. Stefani emphasizes other factors that have been ignored.

"No particular importance has been laid on the psychological or physical effects of sexual activity on sports performance, or upon the different kinds of sports."

This is an important point, given each sport's different mental and physical challenges.

This review demonstrates the need for proper scientific investigation into the impact of sexual activity on sport performance, clarifying any ethical, gender and sport differences.

The authors conclude that because the current evidence debunks the long-held abstinence theories, athletes should not feel guilty when engaging in their usual sexual activity up to the day before competition.

Online social media use does not impair our ability to concentrate

Using online social media does not lead to long-term problems with our ability to concentrate, according to new research published in the International Journal Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments.

We are social animals, so it is really no surprise that billions of us now use online tools to communicate, educate and inform each other. The advent of social media and social networking has nevertheless been phenomenally rapid. "These networks have become an imprint of our everyday life and part of pop culture, revolutionizing the way people communicate and in the way organizations act, says Deborah Carstens of the Florida Institute of Technology."With the abundance of technological devices, an increasing number of users of all ages rely on technology and specifically social media."

There are, however, worries about the impact such tools have on our psyche and our ability to concentrate, for instance. Now research from Carstens' team and their colleagues at Barry University also in Florida, demonstrates that despite the often skittish and transient nature of online social interactions there is no difference to be seen in the attention span or "offline" sociability of occasional users and frequent users of online social media. These modern communication tools do not, it seems, interfere with our primal instincts, such as long-term attitudes, time appreciation, and concentration, in the way that many critics have suggested in recent years.

"Social media is not a fad as it continues to play an increasing role in the individuals' lives. Understanding how to utilize this social media epidemic to enhance learning, relationships and business knowledge is essential as individuals are spending an increasing amount of time on these networks," the researchers conclude.

Females react differently than males to social isolation

While male and female mice have similar responses to physical stress, research from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the University of Calgary, Canada, suggests females, not males, feel stressed when alone.

The findings, to be published in the journal, provide further proof that strategies for coping with stress are sex-specific. They also highlight the importance of a social network for females in particular and pave the way for future research into whether females befriend others as a coping mechanism during stressful situations.

"Many species, including humans, use social interaction to reduce the effects of stress. In fact, the lack of a social network may itself be stressful," says senior author Jaideep Bains, PhD, Professor of Physiology & Pharmacology at the University of Calgary, Cumming School of Medicine.

"Recent research suggests that young girls are more sensitive to social stress than boys. This could mean that social networks are more important for females in general, and that young females from different species, such as mice, may be more sensitive towards social isolation than males."

To test whether isolating individuals from their social group impacts on the brain in sex-specific ways, Bains and his team studied preadolescent mice that had been housed in same-sex groups after weaning. These mice were either left in their same-sex groups, housed in pairs, or were isolated altogether from their littermates for 16 to 18 hours. Following this period, the team examined the effects on the animals' brain cells that control the release of stress hormones.

"Isolating the female mice from their littermates for less than a day led to the release of a signalling chemical called corticosterone, which is produced in response to stressful situations and decreases the excitability of the brain cells," says medical student Laura Senst, lead author of the study. "This reaction was not evident in their male counterparts."

This led the team to believe that only young female mice, and not males, interpret social isolation as a type of stress. If this were true, it would mean that males should experience physical stress in a similar way to the isolated females through activities such as swimming.

After both sexes of mice experienced a 20-minute swim, the researchers indeed discovered that the activity elicited the same reaction in males as that seen in the females that had been isolated and also swam. This suggests both sexes have the same sensitivity towards physical stress.

"By showing that males and females react differently to some types of stress but not others, our study highlights the importance of considering carefully the sex of animals when investigating how stress affects the brain," says Research Associate Dinara Baimoukhametova, co-lead author of the paper.

"Our findings also raise the interesting question of whether social and environmental changes during the crucial preadolescent stage of development could have long-term consequences for how males and females respond to stressful events later in life."