Taken together, these results indicate that salvinorin A, as is sometimes reported in humans, exhibits rewarding effects, independently from its motor activity, suggesting the usefulness of the zebrafish model to study addictive behavior. These effects appear mediated by activation of both kappa-opioid and cannabinoid CB(1) receptors.
Introduction
Historically chocolate has been reported to exert several effects on human sexuality, mainly acting as an effective aphrodisiac, increasing sexual desire, and improving sexual pleasure.
Aim
The aim of our study was to assess whether there is an association between daily chocolate intake and sexual function in a convenience sample of Northern Italian women.
Methods
A convenience sample of 163 women (mean ± SD age: 35.3 ± 9.2 years; body mass index [BMI]: 22.5 ± 3.5 kg/m2), recruited through advertising, completed an anonymous semistructured interview on recreational habits and questionnaires to assess sexual function (Female Sexual Function Index [FSFI]), sexual distress (Female Sexual Distress Scale), and depression (Beck Depression Inventory and Center for Epidemiological Survey Depression Scale).
Results
Complete data were available for 153/163 (93.8%) women. Participants who reported daily chocolate intake (Group 1: 120 women) were significantly younger than those (Group 2: 33 women) who did not report to eat chocolate (33.9 ± 0.8 years vs. 40.4 ± 1.6 years, respectively) (P = 0.0003), despite a similar BMI. Participants in Group 1 had significantly higher total (P = 0.002) and desire domain (P = 0.01) FSFI scores than participants in Group 2. No differences between the two groups were observed concerning sexual arousal and satisfaction, sexual distress and depression. Our data also confirm that aging has a high statistically significant impact on women's sexual function.
Conclusions
It is alluring to hypothesize that chocolate can have either a psychological or a biological positive impact on women's sexuality. In our sample women reporting chocolate consumption have higher FSFI scores than women who do not eat chocolate. However, when data are adjusted for age FSFI scores are similar, regardless of chocolate consumption.
Midazolam, a water soluble benzodiazepine used as a preanaesthetic and hypnotic drug, showed a concentration-related (0.1-0.75 mM) depressant effect on both Adenosine 5'-diphosphate (ADP)-induced oxygen consumption and oxidative phosphorylation of rat liver mitochondria if the substrate was oxidized at different steps in the oxidation chain, but not when the substrate was ascorbate plus tetramethyl-p-phenylenediamine (complex IV). Furthermore, midazolam did not affect citrate synthase activity, but inhibited the 2,4 dinitrophenol (DNP)-uncoupled mitochondrial respiration. This result shows that midazolam primarily acts as a mitochondrial electron transport inhibitor. This inhibition is mainly due to the fact that midazolam decreases NADH ubiquinone reductase (complex I) and ubiquinol cytochrome c reductase (complex III) activities, but it also inhibits complex II activity. Spectrophotometric measurements of redox states of rat skeletal muscle mitochondria cytochromes show a decrease in the reduction of aa3 and c+c1 cytochromes in the presence of the benzodiazepine. Midazolam significantly decreased the reduced ubiquinone/total ubiquinone ratio (evaluated by means of HPLC and electrochemical detection) in rat liver mitochondria in both beta-hydroxybutyrate and succinate. Ubisemiquinone may be the redox component affected by midazolam, whether or not bound to the iron-sulfur proteins present in all three mitochondrial complexes. These effects of midazolam, not necessarily related to the preanaesthetic and hypnotic action are probably mediated via mitochondrial benzodiazepine receptors.
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