ePillz.com - Alcohol – Cure or Cause of Erectile Dysfunction?

Alcohol – Cure or Cause of Erectile Dysfunction?

July 4, 2007

- International Journal of Impotence Research –

Alcohol may rather protect against erectile dysfunction than cause it, says a group of scientists from the University of Hong Kong, China. The researchers made such a surprising and even provocative conclusion after analyzing a number of clinical studies, focused on the association between alcohol consumption and impotence. The results of the meta-analysis were published online in the July issue of the International Journal of Impotence Research.

It was and it still is a widely accepted fact that alcohol, as well as diabetes, overweight, age, depression and smoking, are the risk factors, contributing to the development of erectile dysfunction. However, it appeared to be that this fact can also be called to question. Chinese scientists hypothesized that the role of alcohol in causing impotence may not be as significant as it is said in the majority of textbooks and scientific papers, and decided to investigate the ED risk associated with various levels of alcohol consumption.

It is often said that alcohol increases sexual desire, but decreases sexual performance. This can be explained by the fact that alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, which, however, can lead to certain increase of sexual desire. Amazingly, but after analyzing data from 11 cross-sectional studies and 2 cohort studies, the researchers found the inverse association between alcohol and erectile dysfunction. That means that drinking alcohol does not necessarily cause erectile dysfunction; furthermore, in certain cases it can even protect from the development of this disorder.

Scientists found out that those participants of the studies, who regularly consumed more than 8 drinks per week, had significantly lower chances to develop impotence in comparison to other patients. At the same time, the results of meta-analysis showed that drinking 1-7 alcohol drinks per week had no significant influence on the development of erectile dysfunction.

Though the said meta-analysis suggested a protective potential of alcohol in the development of impotence, it is still not propaganda for consuming alcohol as the protection against problems with erection. Scientists said that more research is necessary to further investigate the association between alcohol and ED.

While protective feature of alcohol is still under a question mark, the researchers are quite definite in saying that their work proved that alcohol is not a risk factor for erectile dysfunction. Fairly speaking, even this statement is enough to make a small revolution of the present day understanding of erectile dysfunction.

The researchers noted in the article, describing the results of their meta-analysis, that they hoped to demonstrate “that association between alcohol consumption and the development of ED might not be as straightforward as it seemed, and the undue popularity of alcohol being labeled as a risk factor for ED was probably unjustified since there was little research evidence to support it.”

Nick

External resources
http://www.nature.com/ijir/journal/v19/n4/full/3901556a.html
http://www.amazon.com/American-Medical-Association-Complete-Encyclopedia/dp/0...