Why you should talk to your physician.

As a physician, years of practical experience have taught me how reluctant men are to mention their sexual problems. But the increasingly clear data from research studies is that erectile dysfunction (ED) may be a symptom of undiagnosed cardiovascular disease (1).
So here’s the bad news. No matter how much you may want to consider ED a private matter. No matter how defensive and resentful you may feel if your physician tactfully asks you how you are getting on in “that” department, there’s a real need to openly discuss ED with your physician. And you are going to get asked the question by any physician who keeps up-to-date with best practice. Erectile dysfunction can have destructive effects on your relationship with your partner, and the diagnosis and treatment of the problem will not only have a positive effect on you as a couple, but it will also help to bridge between you and your physician as tests prove whether those first symptoms of ED really are an early warning of vascular problems. That’s either your heart itself, or the blood vessels taking the blood round your body, or the pressure of the system. To continue the bad news, avoiding any trip to consult your physician and simply buying Viagra online, or Cialis or Levitra is potentially dangerous. You may be leaving a serious heart condition as a time bomb in your system.
How do we know this?
In the Massachusetts Male Aging Study (MMAS), just over half the thirteen hundred men aged between forty and seventy years experienced one or more periods of ED — about 10% had a complete loss of function. It established a clear link between diabetes, cardiovascular disease and ED. About nine years later, a second team of researchers polled the same group of respondents2. The prevalence rate of ED was found to increase with age and was most common among those with below average levels of education diagnosed with high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. This confirmed a general trend of data that about 80% of cases of ED have an organic origin, and arteriosclerosis is probably the most common. This is where the walls of the arteries thicken, and fatty substances, cholesterol, dead cells, calcium and fibrin (a clotting material in the blood) slowly accumulate and limit the flow of blood.
Continuing the flow of good news: as part of the ageing process, the layer of cells lining the interior surface of all blood vessels, called the endothelial layer, decreases the production of nitric oxide. This makes erectile dysfunction more likely when blood flow is reduced through the penis. More generally, endothelium helps to control blood pressure, blood circulation and the clotting process, so poor sexual performance is a critical first symptom of what may become heart disease if not treated. This is even more of a threat to long-term smokers because nicotine both directly affects the vascular endothelium and restricts the smooth-muscle contraction in the cavernosal body producing ED.

In a study completed in 2002(1), 980 patients who reported ED were diagnosed as follows:

• 18% of patients had undiagnosed high blood pressure;


• 16% had diabetes;


• 15% had a benign growth in the prostate;


• 5% had heart disease resulting from a reduced flow of blood,


• 4% had prostate cancer, and


• 1% had depression.

Article Source: http://www.share.onlypunjab.com

John Scott, the author of this article, is a medical journalist collaborating with "Man of People" site.Read more here

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