No Butts About It: The More You Smoke, The Higher The Risk of Impotence
By Jeanie L. Davis WebMD Medical News
Guys, if some of you wonder what's wrong in the bedroom, here's a clue. If you want to smoke in the bedroom, quit smoking. New research adds to the evidence that smoking may be a major cause of erectile dysfunction.
A study looking at the impact smoking has on a man's ability to get an erection was reported today at the American Heart Association's annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention being held in Miami.
"This is not the first study to document an association between cigarette smoking and erectile dysfunction," says researcher Jiang He, MD, PhD, an epidemiologist with Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, in a news release. But this study is unique in that it looks at other factors associated with erectile dysfunction - also known as impotence -- and was able to adjust for these factors, he says.
Both smoking and erectile dysfunction have often been associated -- individually -- with plaque build-up in the arteries, called atherosclerosis. The plaque obstructs blood flow through vessels, causing a host of circulatory problems throughout the body, such as erectile dysfunction.
In this study, researchers examined data on 4,764 Chinese men -- average age 47 -- who completed a health survey. Smoking history and quality of sexual relations were among the questions.
Among the findings:
Men who smoked more than 20 cigarettes daily had a 60% higher risk of erectile dysfunction, compared to men who never smoked.
15% of the past and present smokers had experienced erectile dysfunction.
Men who currently - and formerly -- smoked were about 30% more likely to suffer from impotence.
Among men who had never smoked, 12% had erection problems.
It's yet another reason for smokers to kick the habit, says Robert O. Bonow, MD, AHA president, in a news release.
Men who smoke risk erectile dysfunction
Study: Cigarettes can cause up to 41 percent greater chance of problem
Otherwise healthy men who smoke risk developing erectile dysfunction — and the more cigarettes they smoke, the greater the risk of erectile dysfunction, according to a new study.
Erectile dysfunction is the consistent inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance. In a study of 4,763 Chinese men aged 35 to 74 years who were free of blood vessel disease and who reported that they had been sexually active within the last 6 months, the researchers found a significant statistical link between the number of cigarettes smoked and the likelihood of erectile dysfunction.
"The association between cigarette smoking and erectile dysfunction was found in earlier studies," said first author Dr. Jiang He of Tulane University School of Public Health, New Orleans. "However, most of those studies were conducted in patients with hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes and cardiovascular disease. What distinguishes this study is that it is the first to find this association among healthy men."
Overall, men who smoked had a 41-percent greater risk of erectile dysfunction than men who did not, the team reports in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
And there was a clear "dose-response" relationship, meaning that the more the men smoked, the higher was their risk of erectile dysfunction. Compared with non-smokers, men who smoked up to 10 cigarettes per day had a 27-percent greater likelihood of erectile dysfunction; those who smoked 11 to 20 butts a day had a 45-percent greater likelihood of erectile dysfunction; and those who smoked more than 20 cigarettes daily had a-65 percent greater chance of suffering erectile dysfunction.
The investigators estimate that 22.7 percent of erectile all dysfunction cases among healthy Chinese men — or 11.8 million cases — might be caused by cigarette smoking.
And even when cigarette smokers quit, their risk of developing erectile dysfunction did not decrease. The risk of erectile dysfunction was statistically about the same for former cigarette smokers as for current cigarette smokers, the authors found.
"This study really has a strong message for young men," He said. "It may get their attention if they know that smoking is associated with erectile dysfunction — even in the healthy population."
"So the message is: Don't start." -- look what you might be missing.
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