Regular exercise can reduce the risk for erectile dysfunction (ED) by 41%.

Exercise - just when you think you know all the benefits it bestows, you find out something new.  Looking through the medical news wires this week I saw a very interesting release from Harvard’s Men’s Health -Harvard School of Medicine - which reported on the benefits of regular exercise in men with ED.

The virtues of regualr exercise are hardly unheard of.  Most of us already know that exercise protects against heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, memory loss, colon cancer, fractures, and depression. But the Harvard study found that men who walked approximately 30 minutes a day reduced their risk for ED by 41%.

More good evidence comes from a randomized, clinical study done in 2004. The study involved middle-aged, obese men with ED. The men who exercised moderately for an average of 28 minutes or less a day experienced marked improvements in their sexual performance.

While ED is not a life threatening condition, it can certainly have a dramatic impact on a man’s life, and that of his partner. Because men very often are embarrassed to talk with their health care professionals about ED, it is hard to determine the incidence rate. However in 2002 the National Institutes of Health in the United States estimated that between 15 and 30 million American men suffer from chronic – or long-term – ED. Hardly an insignificant problem. The real incidence is likely much higher, and will continue to grow as the boomer population ages and the number of men with diabetes increases.

One of the risk factors for ED is diabetes. According to the Canadian Diabetes Association, “in up to 12% of men with diabetes, ED is the first sign that leads to a diagnosis of diabetes. Fifty percent of men will experience ED within 10 years of diagnosis of diabetes.” And men who are older, who have had diabetes for years, who have poor blood glucose control, are smokers, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease are at greatest risk for ED.

Of course there are medical treatments for ED – we’ve all heard of Viagra® -  “The little blue pill. It belongs to a class of medications called PDE5 inhibitors, which also includes Levitra® and Cialis™. These drugs work to help increase the blood flow to the penis, enabling a man to have an erection. While some men with diabetes can safely use these drugs, PDE5 inhibitors are not considered safe for men with certain heart conditions, or who are on nitrate medications.

But, if walking for 30-minutes a day could reduce your risk for ED, improve your sexual health and at the same time improve your overall health, wouldn’t you do it? If I were a man, I would. And if 30 minutes regular exercise every day seemed too much to start with, I would do 15 minutes, or find a threshold that I could comfortably begin at. If my partner wanted to join me, that would be great. In addition to feeling better, and spending more quality time with my partner- I might actually shed those extra pounds. Maybe I should walk 30 minutes a day anyway….

For more information on ED and men’s sexual health visit the The Canadian Male Sexual Council at http://www.cmshc.org/

Or

Medline - which is part of the US National Library of Medicine http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/erectiledysfunction.html

If you have a comment contact claire@knowitallhealth.com