Occasional sexual activity `bad for the heart`

London: A romantic weekend away is often just the thing to revive a flagging relationship. But, beware - it could actually kill you, say researchers.

A new study, by Tufts and Harvard Universities, has found that having sex occasionally puts one at more than twice the risk of suffering a heart attack - in fact, the risk is significantly higher for those unused to exerting themselves on a regular basis, a news daily reported. For their study, the researchers reviewed the results of a number of previous researches. They found that "episodic activity" was associated with more than a two and a half times increased risk of heart attack and sudden cardiac death (SCD). However regularly indulging in exercise including sex, offset the increased risk by almost half for each additional time per week it`s carried out, according to the researchers. "Regular physical activity has been identified as strongly associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and related mortality," the researchers wrote in the latest edition of the `JAMA` journal. "Despite the well-established benefits of regular physical activity, anecdotal evidence has suggested that physical activity, as well as other acute exposures, such as sexual activity and psychological stress, can act as triggers of acute cardiac events," they added. In fact, for their study, the researchers looked at more than 14 researches looking at what caused heart attacks and found that a small but significant number happened during physical and sexual activity. They found all kinds of physical activity accounted for three and a half times increased risk and sex 2.7 times. The researchers said that most importantly the risks could be modified by "habitual physical activity" and that those who indulged regularly were much less likely to have a heart attack triggered by sex. PTI