A new study has found that young people who engage in casual sex are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression.

The Daily Mail is reporting that the study, entitled “Risky Business: Is There an Association between Casual Sex and Mental Health among Emerging Adults?” surveyed 3,900 heterosexual college students from more than 30 institutions in teh U.S. about their casual sex behavior and mental well-being.

Experts found that those students who said they recently had sex with someone they knew for less than a week reported higher levels of general anxiety, social anxiety and depression.

It also found that a greater percentage of men (18.6%) than women (7.4%) reported having at least one casual sex encounter in the previous month, but researchers found that gender doesn’t impact the results as much as previously thought.

“It is premature to conclude that casual sexual encounters pose no harmful psychological risks for young adults,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Melina Bersamin of California State University.

“The results suggest that among heterosexual college students, casual sex was negatively associated with well-being and positively associated with psychological distress.”

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