Wrinkle creams, volcanic spas and support socks aren't necessarily the answer to staying young and healthy. The key is sex - and lots of it

Good news: research reveals that sex is the secret ingredient for successful ageing. Dr Merryn Gott from Sheffield University conducted a study examining the importance of sexual relationships and sexual health among older people. The findings of Dr Gott's study suggest that not only does sex get better with age, but older people who are having sex regularly have better physical and mental health than their chaste counterparts.

This revelation probably comes as a surprise to many people. Sex is the province of the young. There is something shocking about the idea that someone with a free bus pass is still contemplating rides of another sort. Sex in your thirties, forties or even fifties is okay. Look at Madonna, Jerry Hall and Helen Mirren - don't tell me they're not active between the sheets. But sex when you are over 60? Surely things will have dried up, sealed over. Surely the desire for sex will have been replaced by a weakness for beige anoraks and trips around stately homes. Many of us have grown up with the idea that anyone over 60 who still has sex must be a dirty old man or woman. Crinkly sex is at best unseemly, and at worst downright repulsive.

Dr Gott believes that our aversion to the idea that older people might enjoy and need sex is linked to our preconceptions. 'It has something to do with the stereotypes that have grown up around older people - we have a tendency to think of them as being asexual,' she says. This subject hasn't been researched in the past due to the assumption that older people would be unwilling and embarrassed to talk about sex. However, Dr Gott found that the older people were, the more prepared they were to talk about their feelings, and in fact, were often delighted to do so because no one had ever expressed an interest before.

Dr Gott's study shows that the Joan Collins Syndrome (the common phenomenon of women who stay sexually active in their later years) is alive and well. It was clear that women, more than men, found that sex became more important to them as they aged. 'Older women have gone through the menopause and don't have to worry about contraception any more. They think about sex as something for enjoyment rather than something that is intimately connected with procreation, and I think this is very liberating for them. They might look at themselves and see that they are a bit saggy or wrinkly, but the fact that they still feel wanted by someone else makes them feel better about themselves.'

Iris, a 66-year-old friend of mine, recently met a new partner after years of being alone. She is quite shameless about her toy-boy (he is actually five years younger than her). 'It's a mistake to think that people don't enjoy sex when they are older,' she says. 'I still feel as passionate now as I did when I was a younger woman, and in some ways more so, because now I can really enjoy it for what it is, without other responsibilities and without caring all the time about how I look.' She adds that, 'Being over 60 doesn't mean you don't want to be desired, touched and to feel close to another human being.'

There is additional evidence to suggest that having sex when you are older can actually prolong your life. In 1997, a study published in the British Medical Journal examined the relationship between frequency of orgasm and mortality. It found that mortality was 50 per cent lower in the group with higher orgasmic occurrence than in the group with lower orgasmic frequency. Simply put, this suggests that the more orgasms you have, the longer you are likely to live. Although there have been no studies to definitively state that having regular sex can guarantee a long life, it's clear that sex and health appear to reinforce each other.

Due to advances in medical knowledge and a greater understanding of preventative health, we are all living longer and leading more active lives. Older people may not want to do it 56 ways on a park bench, but neither do they want to be left on the bench waiting until their time is up. Figures published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour revealed that among healthy 80 to 102 year olds, 63 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women are still having sexual intercourse (In this age group there are 39 men for every 100 women, which may explain the difference). Ben Harding, from Help The Aged, a national charity for the elderly, says: 'A few extra years on your clock doesn't make you any less of a person or a sexual being. We don't see why people should be surprised by this. We dedicate a lot of our time to trying to change the attitude of society as a whole when it comes to this issue.'

Despite what most of the young think about older people having sex, I hope that when my time comes I will choose sex over stately homes. After all, maybe I've misinterpreted the eagerness those ladies in beige demonstrate when piling out of coaches. Perhaps there is more to a pensioners' outing than meets the eye.