- (HealthDayNews) -- Impotence can signal heart trouble
in men.
-
- The sexual problem, also known as erectile dysfunction,
was associated with a more than threefold higher risk of heart attack,
a long-running study of more than 2,000 men finds.
-
- Lead researcher Dr. Steven J. Jacobsen, a professor of
epidemiology at the Mayo Clinic, reported the findings Nov. 11 at the American
Heart Association's annual conference in Orlando, Fla.
-
- Jacobsen and his colleagues reviewed data on sexual function
and cardiovascular disease from a study of the men from Olmsted County,
Minn., that covered the years 1979-98.
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- The precise relationship between impotence and heart
problems is unclear. The reason: Questions about sexual function were added
to the study only in 1996. So the number of heart attacks among men in
the group since then was too small to allow definite conclusions, Jacobsen
says.
-
- "But there is an association," he says. "We
can't say that it is cause-and-effect, but erectile dysfunction is a marker
for future events of cardiovascular disease."
-
- "Overall," Jacobsen adds, "men with a
[heart attack] from 1979 to 1995 were 3.5 times more likely to have erectile
dysfunction in 1996 than men who did not have" a heart attack.
-
- The finding can be put to everyday medical use both by
urologists, who treat erectile dysfunction, and cardiologists, he says.
-
- "Urologists should ask about cardiovascular disease
as well," Jacobsen says. "For physicians seeing men with cardiovascular
disease, erectile dysfunction is an issue to be addressed."
-
- Dr. Sidney Smith, a professor of medicine at the University
of North Carolina and a spokesman for the American Heart Association, says
the new research supplies evidence to support what many physicians have
already been doing.
-
- "For years we have known about a relationship between
vascular disease and erectile dysfunction," Smith says. "This
finding should place further emphasis on the need for physicians to think
beyond erectile dysfunction and at least assess these patients for cardiovascular
risk, asking whether there are symptoms of chest pain, for example."
-
- Jacobsen reiterates that the physical mechanism that
links erectile dysfunction with heart trouble remains unclear. But Viagra,
the popular drug for treatment of impotence, was once considered as a potential
therapy for angina, the chest pain caused by narrowed blood vessels, he
says.
-
- Viagra works against impotence because it enhances the
effects of nitric oxide, a chemical that relaxes smooth muscles in the
penis and allows increased blood flow.
-
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-
-
- Comment
- From Pam Rotella
- 11-12-3
-
- "The precise relationship between impotence and
heart problems is
- unclear."
-
- Not true. This relationship has been studied and understood
for decades, if not longer. They're both children of the same condition,
the main reason to avoid cholesterol and trans-fats.
-
- Arteriosclerosis/atherosclerosis is an equal-opportunity
disease. While small arteries supplying blood to the heart are clogging
up, so are other arteries in the body. By the time arteriosclerosis reaches
this point, the patient is at risk for heart attacks, strokes, impotence,
and any other circulatory disease... probably isn't running marathons
any more, either, or even around the block.
- Comment
Buzz D.
11-12-3
Although Pam is correct, in one diagnostic sense, there is a secondary
and more common cause of impotence in men which has nothing to do with
blood flow. When an erection occurs, blood not only flows to the penis,
but becomes trapped in the penis by constricting/expanding tissues. This
is what maintains the rigidity and even resizes the penis in most cases,
length and girth. In most cases of impotency, this effect isn't happening,
the blood flows in and right back out. There is a hormonal trigger related
to Melatonin which decreases in the male as he gets older -- worse for
some than others; this trigger is what tells the tissue in the penis to
expand and trap the blood for the duration of the erection until ejaculation.
This is what viagra changes, it sparks that trigger and turns it on. As
many reports indicate, it turns it on and doesn't turn it off for many
hours, so a lot of men have painful erections for hours. Ouch. Almost all
impotent men still have partial and lasting erections at odd times during
naps or in the early morning upon waking -- why? Because that is when the
Melatonin is at its highest in the bloodstream. Unfortunately Melatonin
taken orally doesn't solve the problem, it just makes you sleepy, though
many men report "morning wood" effects from Melatonin. I suppose
if ones lover can stand a sleepy sex partner, it beats nothing at all!
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