Raw Food Diet

Many people who suffer a heart attack had never had any symptoms of heart disease. Of the roughly 5,000 individuals who die of sudden cardiac arrest in Sweden each year, two thirds had not had any known heart disease. But in men there is one thing that should constitute a advance sign of coming heart problems: impotence.

In some cases, impotence can have neurological, psychiatric, and other causes. But the most common cause, accounting for up to four cases of five, is that the blood circulation in the penis has become so poor that erection is impaired, or no erection can occur at all. And if the circulation in these vessels has been affected by atherosclerosis, then it is highly probable that the same process is under way in the coronary artery in the heart.

In a dissertation from Lund University in Sweden, the physician Rasmus Borgquist has managed to show that this reasoning is correct.

“One of our studies shows that otherwise healthy men with impotence show signs of early atherosclerosis in the coronary arteries of the heart. In another study we saw that men with impotence evince a higher incidence of high blood pressure, high blood fat, abdominal fat, and other traditional risk factors for heart disease,” he says.

The conclusion is that men with impotence problems should seek care as soon as possible, since both their impotence and the possible threat of heart disorders can be counteracted with early intervention. The first priority involves changes in life style, such as quitting smoking, exercise, and altered diet, and then, if these are insufficient, ¬medication for lowering blood pressure and blood fat and also pharmacological therapy for treatment of the impotence as such.

“It’s probably easier to get men to accept changes in their life style if you can point out that they alleviate impotence, rather than talking about the risk of a heart attack sometime down the road. And there are studies that show that potency improves rather quickly in those who quit smoking and lose weight,” says Rasmus Borgquist.

The notion that there is a connection between impotence and heart disease was put forward in the mid 1980s. But this connection has been studied seriously only in recent years.

“Today there is a greater interest in these issues, both among the public and at drug companies,” claims Rasmus Borgquist. “On the one hand, several new drugs have appeared to combat cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors, and, on the other hand, potency drugs like Viagra have led many more men to seek help for impotence.”

Source: Sciencedaily

“When the penis is hard, life is good.”

That quote, from the website of Men’s Health magazine, will really catch anybody’s attention. The article makes the point that good erections are an excellent indicator of a man’s physical well-being, and that a drop off in that area can be an early warning sign of everything from diabetes to hypertension to heart disease.

So, just how do we read that barometer between our legs?

Who better to tell us than Pfizer, the drug company that makes Viagra? The company recently released its “Erection Hardness Scale.” Widely criticized as a marketing gimmick for the little blue pill, the EHS asks you to assess your erections on a four-level scale.

Pfizer’s penis meter runs from EHS 1 (penis is larger, but not hard) to EHS 2 (getting there, but not stiff enough for penetration) to EHS 3 (gets in, but not completely hard) to EHS 4 (rock solid).

Seeking to contextualize this for the important Asian market, the Singapore Men’s Health Society has provided some possibly helpful food analogies. Level one is tofu, that tasteless bean curd stuff, level two is an unpeeled banana, for level three the banana gets peeled, and the top level is a cucumber. Who knew erectile dysfunction could be so tasty?

All kidding aside, the rating scale at least gets people talking about erection issues, and, one hopes, seeking medical care where appropriate. Even young men who should be having no problems below the belt seem reluctant to get help with erectile dysfunction.

A study of 5,836 men aged 25 to 50 by the Israel Defense Force showed that 1,570 (26.8 per cent) had scores suggesting either ED or another sexual disorders, but only 76 (4.8 per cent) actually went to the IDF’s sex clinic for help.

The cheeriest news about erections is a report from Queen’s University, Belfast, that men who had orgasms at least three times per week reduced their risk of heart attack by half. There are probably lots of factors involved, but one is that sex is exercise, typically burning off about 200 calories a session. Of course, that depends on how long and vigorously you do it.

Source: Canada

The findings in a new study on Viagra might seem obvious — the sexual satisfaction of couples involving a male with erectile dysfunction improved significantly when the man took Viagra. The novelty is that researchers cared what the woman thought.

Sex research involving pharmaceutical treatments, unlike treatments involving therapy, often is limited to effects only on the person taking the medication. One should not assume, however, that partners like or dislike a change in sexual functioning.

“The nice thing about this study is that it reminds us that when people engage in a treatment, even taking a pill, it doesn’t stop at the edge of their skin. It can, and often does, affect others,” said Julia Heiman, lead author of the study and director of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. “In this study, changes in one partner were correlated with changes in another. If one partner improved than so did the other.”

Here are some of the key findings:

* For the men with erectile problems, the younger they were, the more their sexual satisfaction improved with the use of Viagra.
* For women, those who were generally satisfied in their overall relationship but dissatisfied with their sexual relationships reported greater sexual satisfaction when their partner used Viagra.
* The women whose partners took Viagra reported a significant improvement in their sexual satisfaction and in their arousal and orgasms.
* Men in the Viagra group showed significant improvement/changes in erectile functioning, intercourse satisfaction, overall sexual satisfaction and frequency of intercourse satisfaction. Their orgasm function did not increase significantly.

“We are always interested in the health effects of sexuality, and the motivations for seeking treatment,” said Heiman, whose research over the years has examined the development and impact of different sexual treatments on individuals and couples. “Maybe it’s the partner’s response that is most important in predicting long-term treatment gains as well as general health gains. It would be worthwhile knowing that.”

The study, funded by Pfizer, Inc., involved 176 couples in which the male had erectile dysfunction and the female expressed dissatisfaction with their sex life. The male partner in each couple was randomly assigned to either receive Viagra or placebo for 12 weeks, at the end of which 79 Viagra and 76 placebo group couples actually finished the entire study. The mean age for men was 58, with ages ranging from 30 to 86. Most of the women were postmenopausal, with ages ranging from 20 to 79 and an average age of 58.

The study, “sexual function and satisfaction in heterosexual couples when men are administered sildenafil citrate (Viagra) for erectile dysfunction: a multicentre, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial,” appears in the journal BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Source: Spiritindia

THE TROUBLE WITH MEN: Impotence was with us long before Viagra and Cialis. And curing it has never been quite as simple as popping a pill, reports Angus McLaren in Impotence: A Cultural History (University of Chicago Press).

The affliction has been explained over the centuries as the result of excessive masturbation, coitus interruptus, or shell shock. Men have also often found ways to blame women — such as attributing impotence to the Oedipus complex.

Mr. McLaren, a professor of history at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, locates discussions of impotence in Renaissance religious texts, 19th-century marriage manuals, and Hollywood films. Ancient Mesopotamians chanted spells and ate helpful plants and roots to combat it, but some more-recent salves seemed liable to further unman the man. During the 20th century, the German surgeon Peter Schmidt’s “Steinach operation,” for example, involved cutting the vas deferens and injecting “testicular extracts,” which were drawn from prisoners executed at San Quentin State Prison in California or from goats, rams, boars, and deer.

Source: Chronicle

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is very common. Depending upon how you define ED, there are 15 million to 30 million men who have it. ED ranges from complete impotence to unsatisfactory performance.

But it doesn’t have to be a part of getting older. As you age, you may need more stimulation and more time, but older men should still be able to get an erection and enjoy sex.

The incidence of ED increases with age. Between 15 and 25 percent of 65-year-old men experience this problem. In older men, ED usually has a physical cause, such as a drug side effect, disease or injury. Anything that damages the nerves or impairs blood flow in the penis can cause ED.

The following are some leading causes of erectile dysfunction: diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), prostate surgery, hormone imbalance, alcohol and drug abuse.

And, of course, there are your emotions. It should be no surprise that, if you’re having a relationship problem with your sex partner, you can suffer from ED. Here are some other psychological influences: anxiety over a previous failure, everyday stress, depression, and feeling unattractive to your partner. If you’re suffering from ED, you should see your doctor for a discussion and physical exam.

Monitoring erections that occur during sleep can help the diagnosis.

Healthy men have involuntary erections during sleep. If nocturnal erections do not occur, then ED is likely to have a physical rather than psychological cause. Tests of nocturnal erections are not completely reliable, however.

The cause of the ED will determine the treatment. Some ED medicines are injected into the penis. Other medicines are taken orally. In addition to medicines, there are vacuum pump devices and surgery.

Millions of men have benefited from drugs like Viagra that treat ED. Viagra improve the response to sexual stimulation, but they do not trigger an automatic erection as injections do.

Source: Consumeraffairs