Sex fights off a cold!

Forget taking Vitamin C and herbal potions or trying those old wives' tales - scientists have discovered a much nicer way of staving off a cold.

Those who make love once or twice a week develop an antibody that prevents them from getting the sniffles.

A couple of intimate moments with the one you love produces substantially higher levels of Immunoglobulin A (IgA), which forms a barrier against disease, than in those who don't have sex or do so less than once a week.

But don't plan on using this form of cold prevention every night - the bad news is that those who make love more than twice a week also have lower levels of IgA.

The discovery, made by psychologists Carl Charnetski and Francis Brennan of Wilkes University, Pennsylvania, suggests that sexual activity can help boost the immune system.

The professors collected data on 111 undergraduates - 44 men and 67 women - regarding the frequency of their sexual encounters.

These ranged from none to infrequent (less than once a week), frequent (once or twice a week) and very frequent (more than three times a week).

Information was also gathered from the volunteers on the length of their relationships as well as their satisfaction with their sex lives.

The professors then measured each student's immune system by testing their saliva for IgA, which is the commonest of the five major antibodies. 'We found concentrationsof IgA to be approximatelyone-third higher in the frequent group as compared to all other categories, including the very frequent group,' said Professor Charnetski.

After studying sexual activity the professors, who will present their findings next April, now hope to analyse how love can affect the immune system.