Quest For Sexual Stimulants Goes On
By J. Brody - N.Y. Times News Service (8/16/93)

Just as we fertilize gardens to give nature a boost, throughout human history people have used a host of tricks to enhance sexual desire.

Be they tantalizing scents, soothing lights, sensuous music, stimulating drugs, herbs, foods, drinks or even exercise, these tricks of the sexual trade are known as aphrodisiacs.

The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of physical love. With low sexual desire now a leading psychiatric complaint, millions of Americans are seeking ways to excite their sex drives.

Many of the reputed aphrodisiacs, like ginseng and yohimbine, have been used for centuries by primitive - and not so primitive - cultures to enhance sexual interest and performance. Yet few have been put through a true scientific test.

Even if a researcher were intent on properly exploring a substance's stimulatory potential, it would be quite a challenge to come up with accurate and reproducible data on its effects on people.

Sex therapists, among others, maintain that the mind is the primary source of sexual arousal, so any test of a suspected aphrodisiac would also have to measure the placebo effect, the stimulation that results from just thinking one is being exposed to something that ignites desire.

Reviewing reputed aphrodisiacs sold as non-prescription drugs, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration found in 1982 that only two studies had made a scientific attempt to demonstrate specific aphrodisiac action.

One focused on a product combining methyltestosterone, yohimbine hydrochloride and nux vo-mica, the other on an extract of a plant called the Pega Palo plant.

Both studies were said to have serious deficiencies; the panel concluded that all drugs alleged to be aphrodisiacs when taken internally should be categorized as "not recognized as safe or effective."

Given a lack of research, not much has changed since. Currently, the evidence in support of most aphrodisiacs is anecdotal, so the placebo effect cannot be ruled out. A person tries something reputed to be a turn-on, feels turned on and declares it an aphrodisiac.

However, some substances and other less tangible things, like exercise, have biological effects that could conceivably help the sex drive.

For example, some herbs and drugs contain substances that have a mild testosterone-like effect. Although testosterone is classified as a male sex hormone, women produce it as well, and it serves as the primary fuel for libido in both sexes.

Dr. Helen Singer Kaplan, director of the human sexuality program at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, said, "Certain drugs are now known to increase sexual desire by acting on the brain's 'sex center' in the hypothalamus."

The emerging understanding of the biochemistry of the brain has shown that drugs that are thought to interact primarily with receptors for dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps brain cells communicate with each other, can stimulate the sex drive, although in most cases this is an undesirable side effect.

Among those drugs are an antidepressant called Welubutrin (bupropion) and an anti-Parkinson's drug called Eldepryl (selegiline), whereas those that act primarily on serotonin receptors -most notably the antidepressant Prozac - appear to depress the sex drive severely.

Most drug companies are reluctant to test potential aphrodisiacs, Kaplan said, "because they don't want to be accused of selling chemical sex." Also, she said, "the drug would have to be selective - able to increase flagging desire but not make normal people hypersexual."