A good sex life doesn’t just happen-it requires a little help, which means a balanced and nutrients diet combined with regular moderate exercise and a positive attitude. These are all key in helping to keep your sex drive high and your reproductive system in good working order.

In general, a healthy diet which contains a wide range of foods will supply all the vitamins and minerals that you need to enjoy a satisfying love life, as well as ensuring the health of your reproductive organs.

More specifically, several vitamins and minerals are believed to play an important role in maintaining the sex drive and in the production of both ova and sperm. Certain nutrients also have the power to regulate the levels of sex hormones in your body, and some can even help to protect your reproductive system from the potentially damaging effects of infection or disease.

As good nutrition is so influential, it is hardly surprisingly that poor eating habits can have a dramatically disruptive effect on your love life. For example, a lack of zinc can cause infertility and impotence, and while moderate amounts of alcohol can help people to feel relaxed, heavy drinking often inhibits sexual performance in men and women. Furthermore, excessive is known to inhibits ovulation and to interfere with the movement of sperm up the Fallopian tube. Strong drink can actually depress the sex drive of both men and women. And caffeine in coffee, tea and cola drinks can reduce libido.

WATCH YOUR WEIGHT How much you eat can also have an effect on your sex life. It is well documented that being either over or underweight can reduce the libido and impair fertility.

From a psychological point of view, a negative attitude to your body weight or body shape can dent you confidence in sex and relationships.

Amenorrhoea (loss of periods) is a common symptoms of anorexia in women and often occurs in ballet dancers and athletes who have particularly low of body fat. A certain level of body fat is necessary to regulate the hormones that control ovulation and menstruation, and when fat drops below a certain critical point, ovulation and menstruation both cease. At the other extreme, obesity can impair ovulation in women as well as reducing sperm production in men.