Love hormone can trigger overactive sex drive
Believe it or not but an unregulated supply of love hormone from the brain may be the reason behind obsessive sex thoughts in some people characterised as hypersexuals.
A new study on men and women with hypersexual disorder has revealed a possible role of the hormone oxytocin, also known as cuddle or love hormone, according to researchers.
Hypersexual disorder is recognised as a compulsive sexual behaviour disorder, listed as an impulse-control disorder by the World Health Organisation (WHO). While prevalence estimates vary, literature indicates that hypersexual disorder affects 3 to 6% of population globally.
“We set out to investigate the epigenetic regulatory mechanisms behind hypersexual disorder so we could determine whether it has any hallmarks that make it distinct from other health issues,” said lead author Adrian Bostrom from Uppsala University, Sweden.
“Our study is the first to implicate dysregulated epigenetic mechanisms of both DNA methylation and microRNA activity and the involvement of oxytocin in the brain among patients seeking treatment for hypersexuality,” added Bostrom.
The team investigated 8,852 regions of DNA methylation associated to nearby microRNAs to identify any variations between samples. They also compared their findings to samples from 107 subjects, 24 of whom were alcohol-dependent, to explore an association with addictive behaviour.
Analysis revealed that the microRNA targets genes that are normally expressed at particularly high levels in the brain and that are involved in the regulation of the hormone oxytocin. Previous studies have demonstrated that oxytocin is associated with the regulation of social and pairbonding, sexual reproduction and aggressive behaviour in both men and women.
The comparison with alcohol-dependent subjects revealed the same DNA region to be significantly undermethylated, suggesting that it may be primarily associated with the addictive components of hypersexual disorder.
The finding could potentially open the door to treating the disorder by engineering a way to suppress its activity. “Further research will be needed to investigate the role of microRNA and oxytocin in hypersexual disorder, but our results suggest it could be worthwhile to examine the benefits of drug and psychotherapy to reduce the activity of oxytocin,” said Professor Jussi Jokinen, Umea University, Sweden.