It is important for both men and women to understand the causes of erectile dysfunction. The problem may well be a warning that something much more serious could be going on in a man’s body. And wives may be the ones who encourage (okay, nag) their husbands to go to a doctor to get checked concerning something that may be much more serious than a sexual concern.
The most common cause of erectile dysfunction is the partial blockage of the penile artery, with only 20 percent of the problem being caused by low testosterone (which has nothing to do with blockage of the artery).
Erectile dysfunction can be prevented. Sometimes it can be reversed. It is imperative that you understand its cause so today you can begin halting its progress, reversing it, or preventing it.
Erectile dysfunction is much more prevalent than most people think. The Massachusetts Male Aging Study reported that an estimated 52 percent of men, forty to seventy years of age, have erectile dysfunction. They even broke it down to 17 percent being mild, 25 percent moderate, and almost 10 percent severe.
The 52 percent statistic stunned me when I first saw it. I would not have guessed a percentage that high. And then I became more aware of how many television advertisements there are about medications for erectile dysfunction. There are a lot of advertisements, and those ads are directed to only half of the viewing audience.
The same process that causes blockage of the arteries to the heart, which leads to angina, causes erectile dysfunction. The Prescription for Life plan helps in preventing both.
Some recent studies are showing that up to a third of men who have erectile dysfunction already have partial blockage in the arteries in their heart. If you have erectile dysfunction, you—and your wife—should be concerned about the arteries in your heart.
Causes of Erectile Dysfunction
A report in the medical journal Circulation titled “Cardiovascular Implications of Erectile Dysfunction” explains the cause well. Blockage of arteries is caused by cholesterol buildup in the blood vessel walls, forming plaques, which make the vessels narrow and slow down blood flow. The article goes on to explain that this blockage process not only affects the arteries of the heart, the brain, and the legs but also has a direct effect on the artery to the penis.
The most important finding they discuss is that this blockage often affects the penile artery first, before it affects the arteries in the heart and the brain. They point out that the penile artery is smaller than the heart arteries or the arteries going to the brain. Basically, what they are saying is that it doesn’t take as many LDL Cholesterol splinters to block the small penile artery as it takes to block the larger heart arteries, and you can expect symptoms from penile artery blockage before you would have symptoms from the heart artery.
The medical significance of that last statement is that erectile dysfunction can be a warning sign that there is also blockage building up in the arteries of your heart or brain. Again, they stress the size of arteries. The same process is ongoing in all of the arteries, but these researchers feel that the symptoms show up in the smaller ones first. They are making a point that, because of this progressive order of blockage in the arterial tree, erectile dysfunction may be a warning sign that a heart attack or stroke may be coming unless something is done to stop the development of more blockage.
There may be more than just the size of the artery to this. Perhaps the symptoms of erectile dysfunction do not require as much of a blockage as the symptoms from blockage of the heart arteries. Regardless of the underlying anatomical functioning, symptoms from decreased blood flow in the penile artery many times are a precursor of decreased blood flow to the arteries in the heart.
Think about that just a minute. If you were in charge of setting an alarm somewhere in the body to warn men they may have blockage building up in the arteries of their heart, where would be an ideal place to put that alarm? Placing it somewhere that inhibits sex would get the most significant attention. The message in the medical literature is that there is growing evidence that men with erectile dysfunction should be investigated for disease in the arteries of their heart. Even if you don’t have cardiac symptoms, if you have erectile dysfunction, you could still have blockage building up in the arteries of your heart.
To further establish the relationship between the penile artery and the arteries in the heart, the reverse side of the equation is also found to be true. More men with known disease in the arteries of their heart have erectile dysfunction than men who do not have heart disease. One study on two such groups showed that a high percentage of men with disease in their heart arteries also had erectile dysfunction. When this group of men was questioned as to when their erectile dysfunction began, their answers provided astonishing insight. The group of men who had only angina (remember, that is the slight chest pain or discomfort caused from the smaller blockages) said their erectile dysfunction problem began two to three years before they had their initial chest pain. When researchers questioned the men who had a full-blown heart attack resulting from a complete blockage of their heart arteries, they said their erectile dysfunction had begun five years before their heart attack.
So you can see that the dysfunction can be a warning that you may have angina two years down the road or a full-blown heart attack five years from when your dysfunction began.
Here’s the kicker. Protecting your arteries by eliminating the LDL Cholesterol splinters you put into your bloodstream through what you eat, exercising, and getting to an ideal weight all help improve the function of your entire vascular tree. When you protect one part of your arterial tree, you are protecting all of the branches. When you improve blood flow to one area of the tree, you are improving similar flow to the other areas.
The point this article stressed was that if you have erectile dysfunction, plus have certain risk factors for developing blockage of the arteries of your heart, you definitely should be checked out for possible disease in your heart arteries, especially if you are under sixty. We will cover those specific risk factors shortly.
I mentioned that not all erectile dysfunction is caused by problems with your arteries. Some is caused by a low level of testosterone. You see a lot of advertisements for mail-order testosterone pills as a treatment and cure for erectile dysfunction. If you asked the average man what causes the dysfunction, the overwhelming majority would respond with two words: low testosterone. Just remember that the majority of the time the dysfunction is caused by problems in the artery, while only 20 percent of erectile dysfunction is caused by a low testosterone level.
Let me add one thing here. I had a gentleman patient who had erectile dysfunction as well as two risk factors for heart artery disease—he was overweight and had elevated cholesterol. He had a slightly decreased level of testosterone, and his doctor started him on a testosterone supplement. His erectile dysfunction didn’t improve, and the gentleman was at his wit’s end about what to do.
If you are like him, just listen up for the next few minutes about things you may want to have checked and do. You want to know your lipid profile, which includes all the cholesterol numbers we’ve talked about. Your doctor will probably also draw blood for a fasting glucose. An elevation of sugar in your blood can cause damage to the arterial lining, which in turn lets more LDL Cholesterol penetrate into the walls of the arteries. And your doctor will check your blood pressure, because if it is elevated, your heart arteries could be affected down the road as more LDL Cholesterol is pounded into the walls. So, all in all, if you go to your physician and ask to be checked, these are some of the more common tests that will likely be ordered. Any abnormality in these tests may be a heads-up for the possibility of disease of the arteries in your heart, brain, or penis.
Some of the recommendations in medical journals suggest that if you have erectile dysfunction plus any risk factors for heart disease, you may need a stress test and other studies to see if you actually have evidence of blockage in your heart arteries. The risk factors include smoking, obesity with a sedentary lifestyle, diabetes, elevated cholesterol numbers, and elevated blood pressure.