MONDAY, March 15, 2010 (Health.com) — Men with cardiovascular disease and erectile dysfunction (ED) are almost twice as likely to die in a given time period than similar men the same age who do not have trouble achieving or maintaining an erection, a new study suggests.
What’s more, men with ED are twice as likely to have a heart attack, have a 20% greater chance of being hospitalized due to heart failure, and have a 10% increased risk for stroke, compared with men who do not have erectile dysfunction, according to the study of male cardiovascular disease patients in the March 30 issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
While ED can be due to injury, medication side effects, and psychological factors, it also may be sign of a lack of blood flow due to arterial disease, which could signal trouble in other parts of the body, such as the heart and brain.
If you have problems achieving or maintaining an erection, talk to your doctor, says R. Parker Ward, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “Increasingly, physicians are recognizing that erectile dysfunction is a risk factor for heart disease, and if you have it, they will be a little more aggressive in treating your traditional heart disease risk factors such as high cholesterol, and encouraging exercise and eating well,” says Dr. Ward, who was not involved in the study.
But don’t panic yet: Just because you have ED does not mean that you have heart disease. “There are other non-vascular causes of ED,” says Dr. Ward. “A young man without other heart disease risk factors may have ED as a result of psychological issues.”
Next page: More than half of the men had ED
