Erectile dysfunction makes for lots of snickering, slick drug commercials, and no doubt plenty of frustration in the bedroom. But it can also serve as a window to serious disease.

Men with erectile dysfunction (ED) are 80 percent more likely to develop heart disease compared to men who do not have ED, a new Mayo Clinic study finds. Men ages 40 to 49 with ED are twice as likely to get heart disease.

Definition

Has your sex life lost some of its spark because your body feels unresponsive or you're just not interested? You might take comfort in knowing that as many as four in 10 women have the same problem at some point in their lives.

If you have persistent or recurrent problems with sexual response — and if these problems are making you distressed or straining your relationship with your partner — what you're experiencing is known medically as female sexual dysfunction.

Female sexual dysfunction has many possible symptoms and causes. Fortunately, they're almost all treatable. Communicating your concerns and understanding your anatomy and your body's normal response to sexual activity are important steps toward gaining sexual satisfaction.

Women who are sexually satisfied are also happier, no matter their age, a new study suggests. It's not clear which causes the other, however.

You might be thinking, "Duh, better sex makes for a better mood." But in science, thinking something is true doesn't make it so. "A lot of the things we make assumptions about have never been documented," said study researcher Susan Davis of the Women's Health Program at Monash University, Australia

Men think about sex almost 5,000 times a year – but only get down to doing it 104 times, a new study has found.

 Researchers found the average male turns their thoughts to sexual intercourse 13 times a day – a total of 4,745 times every year. Almost a third even admitted it is often the first thing they think about when they wake up in the mornings.