Cardiovascular control in diabetes mellitus.

Heart rate variability and the changes in heart rate and blood pressure which occur on standing were measured in 21 diabetics. These simple measures distinguished four groups of patients, with loss of parasympathetic activity being commoner than loss of sympathetic activity.     

Menstruation and marital sex

This paper explores differences in sexual behavior between menstrual and nonmenstrual days, using daily report data from 85 husbands and wives for about 100 days each. Most of the men were in graduate school and the wives had a mean education of 16 years. All couples practiced contraception, but not a hormonal or rhythm method. Husband's desire for intercourse was reduced by 6%, the wife's by 19%. A sexual frustration index is arrived at by taking the % of nonintercourse days on which the respondents nevertheless reported wanting intercourse. Husbands showed a frustration index of 22% on nonmenstrual days and 36% on menstrual days. Wives demonstrated a 15% sexual frustration level when not menstruating, 19% during menstruation. The frustration reduction index (arrived at by counting the number of "want intercourse days" on which orgasm occurred without intercourse), was 17% in husbands on menstrual days, 10% on nonmenstrual days; for wives the index was 7% on menstrual days, 6% on nonmenstrual days. The authors conclude that in the highly educated group studied, intercourse and orgasm are reduced during menstruation, in association with impressively less female desire for intercourse during menstruation. The women respond to a resultant potential increase in male sexual frustration by providing the husbands an increase in noncoital orgasm on menstrual days. However, the wives do not experience an increased intercourse frustration level during menstruation and their heterosexual noncoital orgasm rate is relatively stable throughout the cycle. The different patterns of desire levels for husbands and wives may have a biological base, and the different behavior observed represent a sociological compromise.