For more pleasurable sex, eat first — here’s why: brain scan study

Food and sex are two of life’s greatest pleasures — and now science says they’re even better together.

Researchers from Norway’s University of Oslo have uncovered that “soft caresses” don’t feel as satisfying if you’re hungry.

The team published their findings in the academic journal Psychophysiology after conducting experiments on 67 Norwegian volunteers of both sexes.

“Touch pleasantness was higher after a meal than without, and brain activation was higher after a meal than without,” the team asserted.

They subsequently asserted that ghrelin, the gut hormone that drives food motivation and increases food intake, was intrinsically linked to levels of pleasure.

In order to conduct the experiment, participants were required to have their shins gently touched on two separate days — one when they had eaten and one when they had not.

On the first day, the volunteers arrived for the experiment at 3 p.m., having fasted for six hours. They were subsequently given a liquid meal and a banana before having their right shin brushed at differing speeds. At the same time, their brains were scanned with an fMRI scanner. Afterward, they were asked to rate how pleasurable they found the touching to be.

On the second day, the participants were required to fast for six hours and were not given any food once they arrived to complete the experiment. No doubt feeling hungry, they once again had their shins brushed while their brains were scanned.

Sure enough, the scans uncovered higher ghrelin levels (the hunger hormone) on the second day. Not surprisingly, the volunteers also reported lower levels of pleasure.

“All touch velocities were rated as less pleasant when participants had not eaten,” the researchers declared. “This may be because the participants may have been distracted by hunger-related interoceptive feelings caused by an empty stomach.”

“Ghrelin might contribute to downregulating the value of social stimuli to promote food-seeking instead [of focusing on pleasure],” they concluded. “Our results show that, beyond its established role as an appetite-stimulating hormone, ghrelin is also involved in assigning value to social rewards such as touch.” 

However, it may not be wise to eat too much before getting down and dirty, with one doctor saying you should wait at least 60 minutes after a big meal to have sex.

“Any time less than that would result in perhaps a lot of the food still being in your abdomen,” Dr. Valerie Antoine Gustave previously told StyleCaster.

The expert added that “highly fermentable carbohydrates like milk products, breads, and fruits like apples and cherries can cause an increase in gas and bloating,” so you may additionally want to avoid such substances long before any bedtime trysts.