And a healthier sex life could mean a longer life.

That's according to a paper written by University of Chicago researchers that was published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal. While the supposition that men think about sex more than women isn't new, the paper's findings have wider implication for attitudes toward public health and how patients respond to doctors' advice, said Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and geriatric medicine who spearheaded the research.

"If you are a man diagnosed with diabetes or high blood pressure and I tell you that you need to lose weight and take medication, and I can say the benefit is five extra years of sex life, you might be more inclined to do what I tell you," she explained.

Lindau said that women generally reported wanting less sex or receiving it less often for three reasons: Women outlive men by an average of five to six years and without a partner, women are less likely to engage in sex. Secondly, there's a Western cultural acceptance -- and removal of stigma -- of men who have erectile dysfunction and have turned to relatively recently marketed drugs such as Viagra; women don't have that.

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Source ---->http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/09/healthy.sex/index.html?hpt=C1