Erectile Dysfunction Linked to Atherosclerosis

Erectile dysfunction should be added to a growing list of risk factors for Heart disease, according to a team of Italian researchers.

They based their recommendation on a small study of men with vascular Erectile dysfunction, and they called it an additional "early warning sign of Atherosclerosis."

Compared with men with no evidence of vascular penile disease, men undergoing treatment for erectile problems have significantly higher levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), (P<0.001), impaired endothelial function (P<0.001), and more coronary artery calcification (P=0.01), said Emilio Chiurlia, Ph.D., of the University of Modena.

"We think that Erectile dysfunction is the 'tip of the iceberg' of a systemic vascular disorder," said Dr. Chiurlia and colleagues. They reported their findings in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Erectile dysfunction
An erection problem is the inability to get or maintain an erection that is firm enough for a man to have intercourse. You may be unable to get an erection at all, or you may lose the erection during intercourse before you are ready. If the condition persists, the medical term is erectile dysfunction.

Considerations

Erection problems are common in adult men. In fact, almost all men experience occasional difficulty getting or maintaining an erection. In many cases, it is a temporary condition that will go away with little or no treatment. In other cases, it can be an ongoing problem that can damage a man's self esteem and harm his relationship with his partner, and thus requires treatment.

The investigators added that patients with vascular Erectile dysfunction should "be considered at high risk for coronary artery disease and should have high priority for aggressive treatment."

If the findings are confirmed by additional studies, Erectile dysfunction should be used together with other cardiovascular risk factors to discriminate patients needing further investigation for subclinical coronary artery disease, they added.

Dr. Chiurlia and colleagues studied 70 consecutive Erectile dysfunction patients and 73 age- and risk factor-matched controls.

Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis is a condition in which fatty material is deposited along the walls of arteries. This fatty material thickens, hardens, and may eventually block the arteries.

Atherosclerosis is just one of several types of "arterio"-sclerosis, which is characterized by thickening and hardening of artery walls, but the two terms are often used to mean the same thing.