Erectile Dysfunction : The Window To The Heart
10 Mar 2009
Mae West, the sex queen of long ago, had a great one-liner when she greeted males, “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me?” This line always triggered a barrel full of laughs. But today it’s no laughing matter that an increasing number of male are suffering from erectile dysfunction. A report in the British Medical Journal indicates that there’s more to this problem than meets the eye.
Dr. Geoffrey Hackett, a urologist at Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham, England, says most doctors are uncomfortable asking their male patients if they can have an erection. This oversight amounts to negligence as the onset of ED doubles the risk of heart attack. In fact, it can portend problems three years before a coronary attack occurs.
Hackett raises a valid point. After all, doctors ask if you’re a smoker, have a family history of heart disease or diabetes, all risk factors for coronary disease. So why not inquire about ED? It’s an unfortunate omission as few macho males are going to bring up the subject during an office visit.
Dr. Gerald Brock, a London, Ontario, urologist, echoes the same alarm. He says, “This doesn’t mean that all men with ED need a stress test. Rather, a light bulb should go on in our heads that ED can be a good predictor of heart disease. And that ED is a window into the status of a man’s circulation”.
He points out a significant anatomical fact that is rarely mentioned. Penile arteries are much smaller than coronary vessels and therefore more easily plugged by cholesterol deposits. This means that when penile arteries are narrowed only a few drop of blood enter the penis every minute. But to achieve a good erection, blood flow must be increased 100 times!
ED affects 12 million North American males and it can occur at any age. Studies show that one in three men over 40 have some degree of impotence and that at 65 years of age 75 percent suffer from ED. Who says these are “the golden years?”
There are many possible causes for ED other than hardening of arteries. Dr. Melvyn Rubenfire, Director of Preventive Cardiology at the University of Michigan, says that smokers have a much higher incidence of ED because smoking impairs the function of small vessels including the lining cells of vessels that are responsible for erection. Drinking too much alcohol, exhaustion, fear of failure at intercourse, depression and prostate surgery can also reduce blood flow to the penis to a dribble.
Many cases of ED are related to drugs. For instance, few people are aware that the statin drugs so widely used today to lower blood cholesterol also decrease the production of the male hormone testosterone. Diuretics, blood pressure medication, cimetidine, marijuna and chemotherapy also trigger ED. All told there are 48 drugs that hinder an erection.
Dr. Malcolm Carruthers is one of the early pioneers of ED and I recently visited him in his Harley Street office in London, England. He says that ED drugs, although often effective, are not always associated with good results and when this happens men should not give up.
He says that a lack of testosterone can be a key factor in ED and it’s often overlooked by doctors. Carruthers calls testosterone the “Hormone of Kings” and that ED can be cured in 95 percent of cases by a simple formula “ED drugs + testosterone = End of ED.”
Carruthers has had great experience treating tycoons and captains of industry as he says, 90 percent of them are impotent. And that they need high doses of testosterone to make ED drugs work.
Regardless of the cause of ED the message from Dr Hackett is clear. Males must get over their reticence about informing doctors about ED. And when they do, physicians must realize that this symptom is just the tip of the iceberg.
This could save needless deaths from heart disease. It might also please Mae West to know that more men would be happy to see her, without a gun in their pockets!
