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Smoking's a Drag on Sex Impotency strikes male smokers with
high blood pressure By Randy Dotinga HealthScoutNews
May 21 (HealthScoutNews) - Despite movie images of lovers lighting
cigarettes during romantic encounters, new research now offers more
evidence that many male smokers can't express their burning desires.
Men who smoke and have high blood pressure are 26 times more likely to
be impotent than non-smokers, according to a North Carolina
researcher. Quitting tobacco helps, but not entirely -- former smokers
were still 11 times more likely to have trouble maintaining an
erection if they also had hypertension.
"Everybody knows that smoking is a contributory factor to
impotence, but it's not really known how much. It's nice to have a
number when you're a physician seeing a patient," says the researcher,
Dr. John Spangler of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Spangler's findings were released May 19 at a conference of the
American Society of Hypertension in San Francisco.
Spangler examined 59 patients who had hypertension, which is also
known as high blood pressure. Essentially, high blood pressure means
that the heart is working too hard to push blood through the body's
circulatory system, possibly because arteries are clogged.
In his study of men between the ages of 48 and 78, about half of
the smokers were impotent. Non-smokers hardly reported the condition
at all, he says.
For the sake of the study, men with impotence were defined as those
who suffered difficulty with erections over the past month. The Wake
Forest researchers adjusted their results so they wouldn't be affected
by other risk factors that could affect impotence, like stress,
obesity and age, Spangler says.
Smoking can cause clogging of the arteries in the pelvis area,
which reduces the flow of blood to the genitals, Spangler explains.
Since erections are caused by increased blood flow to the penis, that
can spell trouble. Spangler adds that the chemicals in tobacco may
also affect the body's regulation of the male hormone testosterone.
The new research will give more ammunition to doctors when they try
to convince their patients to stop smoking, says Dr. Michael A.
Werner, a White Plains, N.Y., urologist.
Many patients have no idea that tobacco will hurt their love lives,
he says. But when they find out, they pay attention.
"When patients come to me for other issues, I tell them that if
they keep smoking the way they are, they'll become impotent at a
earlier age," he says. "They don't care if they're going to get heart
attacks or strokes, but when you tell them they'll get impotent, they
sit up and pay attention."
While impotency is largely a problem for older men, younger men who
smoke can experience weaker erections because of constricted blood
vessels, Werner adds.
But many men don't realize that. "The men look at me, shocked, even
though it's intuitive that anything that affects their blood vessels
would affect their erection," he says.
What To Do
If you're a male smoker, consider reducing your intake of
cigarettes or quitting entirely. Otherwise, don't be shocked if you
get a surprise in the bedroom.
See Stop Smoking with
Zyban
More Zyban from Alternative
International Pharmacies
can be found in the
Pharmacy
Section
Many people don't understand what high blood pressure is. The
American Heart Association has a handy
fact sheet with information
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