Men smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day have a significantly bigger risk of erection problems compared to men who have never smoked.

Given that smoking contributes to the furring up of the arteries that sets the scene for heart disease, it is perhaps unsurprising that it affects blood flow elsewhere in the body. Specifically, smoking is linked with erectile dysfunction. A new study by doctors at Tulane University in the US is the first to control for other risk factors and still find that smoking is associated with erectile problems.

The team studied a group of 4,764 Chinese men, average age 47 and all sexually active. They found that 62 per cent were current smokers and 9.5 per cent used to smoke. Overall, erectile dysfunction affected 14.6 per cent of the men. Current and former smokers had a rate of 15.1 per cent compared to11.5 per cent among men who had never smoked. The more cigarettes a man smoked, the more likely he was to have erectile dysfunction. Maybe men should be warned of the danger that smoking poses to their sex life?

Source

American Heart Association Conference 7th March 2003