Healthy Lifestyle May Fight Impotence

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One expert sees a direct connection between ED and risk factors for heart disease.

"Diabetes and hypertension are common in the general population, so it should come as no surprise that they are also common in a population of patients who suffer from ED," said Dr. Arthur Schwartzbard, director of Clinical Lipid Research at New York University's Lipid Treatment and Research Center.

In fact, estimates from surveys very similar to NHANES have suggested that a constellation of risk factors, called the "metabolic syndrome," is present in almost half of middle-aged adults in the United States, he said. Metabolic syndrome is characterized by insulin resistance, obesity, high blood pressure, glucose intolerance, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, and high blood levels of small, dense LDL cholesterol particles.

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"Screening for risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes should be done in all patients, not just those with ED," said Schwartzbard, who is also director of noninvasive cardiology and an assistant professor of medicine at NYU School of Medicine. "Lifestyle modifications such as exercise and weight loss for patients with the metabolic syndrome have been shown to prevent almost two-thirds of new-onset diabetes cases," he added.

Increasing physical activity, weight loss, and control of high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes can also reduce the incidence of heart attacks and strokes, Schwartzbard said, so "I would expect that such overall lifestyle changes could have a positive impact on the incidence of ED in the U.S."

More information

There's more on erectile dysfunction and general health at the American Urology Association (www.urologyhealth.org ).

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