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Sex & Senior Citizens
Erectile Dysfunction and Coronary Heart Disease May
Share Risk Factors
Smoking, obesity, lack of exercise increase risk;
alcohol drinking doesn't matter, says new study
June 28, 2006 - A prospective study by researchers
from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has found that obesity
and smoking are strongly associated with a greater risk of erectile
dysfunction (ED). Meanwhile, regular physical activity appeared to have
a significant impact on lowering the risk of ED. This is the first
large-scale prospective study to examine the links between ED and
smoking, obesity, alcohol and a sedentary lifestyle. It is already
established that older men are the most susceptible to ED.
The study will appear in the July 2006 issue of The
Journal of Urology.
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Senior Citizens & Sex |
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The researchers, led by Constance Bacon, a former
post-doctoral fellow at HSPH, and
Eric Rimm , associate professor of epidemiology and nutrition at
HSPH, surveyed 22,086 healthy subjects between the ages of 40 and 75
from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, who reported good or very
good erectile function and no major chronic disease before 1986.
Among the participants, 17.7 percent (3,905)
reported new onset of ED between 1986 and 2000. The researchers adjusted
the results to take into account those with and without prostate cancer
during the follow-up period, since prostate cancer treatments, such as
radiation or surgery, may lead to ED.
The results showed that both smoking and obesity
were associated with a higher risk of the development of ED among
previously healthy men with good erectile function.
The researchers also found that regular physical
activity showed a strong inverse association with ED risk.
We found a 2.5-fold difference in risk of ED when
we compared obese men who did little exercise with men who were not
overweight and averaged 30 minutes of vigorous exercise a day. (Obesity
was defined as a body mass index of more than 30 kilograms in weight
divided by the square of height in meters.) For men younger than 55
there was a 4-fold difference in risk for the same comparison, said
Rimm.
Alcohol consumption did not increase the risk of
ED. In general, men without prostate cancer showed stronger associations
with these lifestyle factors than those with prostate cancer.
These results suggest that ED and coronary heart
disease may share many of the same risk factors.
Rimm said the results should encourage men to
follow a more healthy lifestyle.
Many men may choose not to change to a healthier
lifestyle, which includes exercise and a prudent diet, because they
perceive heart disease as something that may only develop decades in the
future. Hopefully, these results will help to motivate men to adopt a
more active lifestyle to avoid a problem which may be more immediate,
he said.
Editor's Notes: The
Health Professionals Follow-Up Study was launched in 1986 to examine
diet and chronic disease among male health professionals in the U.S. The
study was supported by Pfizer, Inc., and by grants from the National
Institutes of Health.
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