Orgasm Diet, by Marrena Lindberg - summary

NY Times article

MARRENA LINDBERG proposes another kind of dietary revolution in her book, ''The Orgasmic Diet.'' The goal of her diet isn't shedding pounds, it's turbocharging women's sex drives by encouraging them to eat foods and take supplements that manipulate dopamine and serotonin levels, and to do specific exercises that tone body parts most people will never see.

Before taking her diet plan too much to heart, remember that her recommendations have nothing to do with how you look in jeans; she is concerned with how you feel when you're out of them.

''Think of it as a sexual tuneup,'' she writes. Follow her plan, and you may lose weight without trying. You may not even have time to eat.

To ''access the sexual goddess within you,'' follow Ms. Lindberg's three-part plan. One: Eat a high-protein, low-carb diet that includes a lot of dark chocolate to increase dopamine levels.

Two: Dose yourself on massive quantities of pure refined fish oil. For a woman who is 5-foot-5 and weighs 130 pounds, Ms. Lindberg recommends 3,000 milligrams a day -- 1,700 mg of the omega-3 fatty acid EPA and 1,300 mg of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA.

Three: use a doohickey called a GyneFlex (you don't want to know the details). Ms. Lindberg writes that she came by her program ''unwittingly.'' An Ivy League-educated researcher at an environmental consulting company, she had not given much thought to the mysteries of Eros until the late '90s, when she became pregnant and changed her habits radically -- no antidepressants, no caffeine and plenty of fish oil supplements. ''My libido not only picked up, it took off,'' she writes.

After giving birth twice, she added exercises she'd learned watching Oprah Winfrey's show. The combination proved effective: ''I became a maniac,'' she writes, adding, ''My husband was ecstatic!'' She began sharing her findings on Internet message boards. ''I thought I had discovered the female Viagra,'' she writes.

In her chapter, ''The Magic of Fish Oil,'' Ms. Lindberg tries to explain her findings scientifically. To the question ''What does the fish oil do, sexually speaking?'' she responds that it increases nitric oxide in the bloodstream and dopamine levels in the brain.

To the question ''Will the fish oil change anything besides my libido?'' she replies, ''Yes, absolutely. It will increase your feelings of pleasure and well-being in general.''

Is this just a modern variation on snake oil salesmanship? Could be, but it probably won't hurt you. And as Ms. Lindberg points out, whatever her fish oil regimen does or does not do for your sex life, ''it will certainly keep you regular.'' What works for her may not work for you, she cautions, and that may not be a bad thing.

Ms. Lindberg was so responsive to her own program that, ''my libido was in the stratosphere.'' She says her husband, spooked by her voracity, eventually recoiled, and the couple divorced.

But, she writes reassuringly, ''While this knowledge may have blown up my own marriage, I firmly believe that it can save many others.'' Hmm. Maybe. Still, if you decide to have what she's having, you may want to proceed with caution.