Erectile Dysfunction Lower in Men Who Have Intercourse Frequently

January 7th, 2011 by eros7

Having intercourse more often may help prevent the development of erectile dysfunction (ED). A study published in the July 2008 issue of The American Journal of Medicine reports that researchers have found that men who had intercourse more often were less likely to develop erectile dysfunction.

Analyzing a five-year study of 989 men aged 55 to 75 years from Pirkanmaa, Finland, the investigators observed that men reporting intercourse less than once per week at baseline had twice the incidence of erectile dysfunction compared with those reporting intercourse once per week. Further, the risk of erectile dysfunction was inversely related to the frequency of intercourse.

Other factors that may affect the incidence of erectile dysfunction, such as age, chronic medical conditions (diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease and depression), body mass index and smoking were included in the analysis of the data.

Erectile dysfunction incidence was 79 cases per 1000 in men who had reported sexual intercourse less than once per week, dropping to 32 cases per 1000 in men reporting intercourse once per week and falling further to 16 per 1000 in those reporting intercourse 3 or more times per week.

In addition, the frequency of morning erections predicted the development of complete erectile dysfunction, with an approximate 2.5-fold risk among those with less than 1 morning erection per week compared with 2 to 3 morning erections per week

Writing in the article, Juha Koskimäki, MD, PhD, Tampere University Hospital, Department of Urology, Tampere, Finland, states; “Regular intercourse has an important role in preserving erectile function among elderly men, whereas morning erection does not exert a similar effect. Continued sexual activity decreases the incidence of erectile dysfunction in direct proportion to coital frequency.”

The study clearly indicates that regular intercourse protects men from the development of erectile dysfunction, which may, in turn, impact general health and quality of life. The investigators advise clinicians to support the sexual activity of their patients.

The article is “Regular Intercourse Protects Against Erectile Dysfunction: Tampere Aging Male Urologic Study” by Juha Koskimäki, MD, PhD, Rahman Shiri, MD, PhD, Teuvo Tammela, MD, PhD, Jukka Häkkinen, MD, PhD, Matti Hakama, ScD, and Anssi Auvinen, MD, PhD. It appears in The American Journal of Medicine, Volume 121, Issue 7 (July 2008) published by Elsevier.

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Online Pharmacy Safety Providing Erectile Dysfunction Drugs

December 28th, 2010 by eros7

Should you buy erectile dysfunction and impotence treatment drugs online?

Online Internet shopping today offers many benefits. You can research a product in the privacy of your own home and purchase most anything by clicking a mouse. But should we be allowed to buy prescription drugs via the Internet, bypassing a traditional office visit or conversation with a physician? In the August issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers from Utah and several colleagues compare the relative safety of two systems — an online prescribing service versus traditional physician consultation – for patients seeking medication to treat erectile dysfunction.

Online prescribing, also called e-medicine prescribing, is relatively new in the United States. Patient demand for these services appears to be growing, but the researchers acknowledge that the health care industry “has appropriately raised serious concerns about the safety of prescribing over the Internet.” In 2002, the state of Utah signed a contract with an Internet prescribing service to prescribe erectile dysfunction drugs called PDE-5 inhibitors. Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the inability of a man to maintain a firm erection long enough to have sex.

The researchers randomly selected 1,000 patient medical records from patients seeking ED treatment from Jan. 1, 2001 to Dec. 31, 2005. Half (500) of these patients used the online prescriber (the e-medicine group), and 500 consulted a physician (the traditional medicine group) for treatment.

Using statistical analyses, the researchers compared the safety of both approaches — e-medicine versus traditional medicine — in treating patients who have ED. The safety comparisons looked at a number of criteria, including prescription appropriateness, how often the prescribers used a diagnostic tool called the International Index of Erectile Questions (IIEQs) and the level of patient education provided by prescribers.

Evaluating both systems for these safety criteria, the researchers concluded that the e-medicine system “outperformed the traditional system in most of the safety variables tested.” One area the e-medicine system appeared to excel was patient education. The authors noted that 100 percent of the e-medicine clients received written manufacturer product information, and 75.2 percent of e-medicine clients received tailored electronic messages. In comparison, study data showed that no medication instructions were recorded for 51.8 percent of patients who received prescriptions via a traditional physician consultation.

“Innovation, technology and current medical practice all factor into the outcome of this study,” note the authors. “Application of an expert interview system specifically targeted to erectile dysfunction along with a continuous platform for patient client-physician communications make this particular Internet system comparable to traditional medical practice.”

The researchers acknowledge that additional research is needed to confirm these results. They also recommend that state regulatory agencies “consider using the regulatory model of oversight protections implemented by the state of Utah to license Internet prescribing companies.”

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Topical cream studied for erectile dysfunction

December 24th, 2010 by eros7

Scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University are working on a cream to rub on and treat erectile dysfunction (ED). The cream could prove to be safer than oral medications used to deliver nitric oxide to the cells that improves blood flow to treat impotency. Using encapsulated nanoparticles, the scientists have found a way to deliver nitric oxide and prescription drugs that penetrate the tissues to treat erectile dysfunction that affects tens of millions of men.

The study, published online in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, was performed on eighteen rats with age related erectile dysfunction. The cream, when applied topically, delivers drugs to treat erectile dysfunction in a controlled release fashion that eliminates the potential side effects when erectile dysfunction drugs are delivered systemically.

The researchers treated three groups of rats – one group received the topical nanoparticles erectile treatment with encapsulated nitric oxide. A second group received nanoparticles encapsulated with nitric oxide, plus an experimental erectile dysfunction drug called sialorphin. Sialorphin acts differently than PDE5 inhibitors currently on the market such as Viagra and Cialis. The third group was given the topical erectile dysfunction cream plus tadalafil (Cialis).

The nanoparticle, nitric oxide system, applied topically, combined with either sialorphin or tadalafil, significantly improved erectile dysfunction in five out of seven rats treated. Developer of the topical erectile dysfunction treatment and study co-author Joel M. Friedman, M.D., PhDs says, “Most of the animals, nearly 90 percent, showed a response to treatment with the nanoparticles.”

It only took thirty minutes for the rats to respond to the treatment says senior author Kelvin P. Davies, Ph.D., associate professor of urology at Einstein. “In both rats and humans, it can take 30 minutes to one hour for oral ED medications to take effect.”

Using a topical treatment for erectile dysfunction could prove safer for men with existing heart disease, and could also provide a more effective treatment for diabetics who have high rates of erectile dysfunction. So far, the erectile dysfunction cream looks safe. The scientists found no signs of systemic toxicity, local inflammation, or other undesirable side effects.

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Male Fertility Improves After minimally Invasive Treatment

December 21st, 2010 by eros7

A minimally invasive treatment for a common cause of male infertility can significantly improve a couple’s chances for pregnancy, according to a new study published in the August issue of Radiology. The study, conducted at the University of Bonn in Germany, also found that the level of sperm motility prior to treatment is a key predictor of success.Health

“Venous embolization, a simple treatment using a catheter through the groin, can help to improve sperm function in infertile men,” said lead author Sebastian Flacke, M.D., Ph.D., now an associate professor of radiology at the Tufts University School of Medicine, director of noninvasive cardiovascular imaging and vice chair for research and development in the department of radiology at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. “With the patients’ improved sperm function, more than one-quarter of their healthy partners were able to become pregnant.”

Normally, blood flows to the testicles and returns to the heart via a network of tiny veins that have a series of one-way valves to prevent the blood from flowing backward to the testicles. If the valves that regulate the blood flow from these veins become defective, blood does not properly circulate out of the testicles, causing swelling and a network of tangled blood vessels in the scrotum called a varicocele, or varicose vein.

Varicoceles are relatively common, affecting approximately 10 percent to 15 percent of the adult male population in the U.S. According to the National Institutes of Health, most cases occur in young men between the ages of 15 and 25. Many varicoceles cause no symptoms and are harmless. But sometimes a varicocele can cause pain, shrinkage or fertility problems.

The traditional treatment for problematic varicoceles has been open surgery, but recently varicocele embolization has emerged as a minimally invasive outpatient alternative. In the procedure, an interventional radiologist inserts a small catheter through a nick in the skin at the groin and uses x-ray guidance to steer it into the varicocele. A tiny platinum coil and a few milliliters of an agent to ensure the occlusion of the gonadic vein are then inserted through the catheter. Recovery time is minimal, and patients typically can return to work the next day.

Dr. Flacke and colleagues set out to identify predictors of pregnancy after embolization of varicoceles in infertile men. The study included 223 infertile men, ages 18-50, with at least one varicocele. All of the men had healthy partners with whom they were trying to achieve a pregnancy.

In the study, 226 of the patients’ 228 varicoceles were successfully treated with embolization. A semen analysis performed on 173 patients three months after the procedure showed that, on average, sperm motility and sperm count had significantly improved. Six months later, 45 couples, or 26 percent, reported a pregnancy. A high level of sperm motility before the procedure was identified as the only significant pre-treatment factor associated with increasing the odds of successful post-treatment pregnancy.

“Embolization of varicoceles in infertile men may be considered a useful adjunct to in-vitro fertilization,” Dr. Flacke said.

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Older men with restless legs show higher rates of erectile dysfunction

December 17th, 2010 by eros7

A new study shows that older men with restless leg syndrome (RLS) also suffer from higher rates of erectile dysfunction. The findings also show that increased frequency of restless leg syndrome leads to worsening erectile dysfunction for men.

For men who have restless leg syndrome 15 times a month or more, the incidence of erectile dysfunction was as high as seventy eight percent, and lower for those who experienced fewer episodes of RLS monthly.

The study, published in the journal Sleep suggests that restless leg syndrome and erectile dysfunction share the same mechanism.

For older men without restless leg syndrome the occurrence of erectile dysfunction was forty percent. For older men who reported restless leg syndrome, erectile dysfunction incidence was fifty three percent. The study came from an analysis of 23,119 men who participated in the Health Professional Follow-up Study. Information about erectile dysfunction and RLS was obtained via questionnaire. Average age of the men was 69, that included male dentists, optometrists, osteopaths, podiatrists, pharmacists and veterinarians in the US. Approximately four percent of the men had RLS.

According to lead author Xiang Gao, MD, PhD, instructor at Harvard Medical School, associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and research scientist at the Harvard School of public health in Boston, Mass, “The mechanisms underlying the association between RLS and erectile dysfunction could be caused by hypofunctioning of dopamine in the central nervous system, which is associated with both conditions.”

Scientists do not know what causes restless leg syndrome, a condition that is more prevalent in middle aged women and older adults. RLS causes frequent movement of the legs and uncomfortable sensations that interfere with sleep because of a persistent uncontrollable urge to move the legs. There are several identified factors that make restless leg syndrome worse, including stress, Parkinson’s disease, kidney disease, pregnancy, iron deficiency, and certain medications. Heredity might play a role, but the source of the condition has not yet been discovered.

The findings from the current study suggest that sleep apnea could play a role in both restless leg syndrome and erectile dysfunction through decreased levels of circulating testosterone.

The study is not conclusive in that it does not establish cause. The scientists say further studies are needed to uncover the biological mechanisms linking restless leg syndrome to erectile dysfunction in older men. For men who experience restless leg syndrome in addition to erectile dysfunction, a sleep study could be of benefit, and may be worth discussing with your physician.

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Hello world!

December 17th, 2010 by eros7

Welcome to Journalspace.com Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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