If you have any such problem, you have a lot of company. The National Institutes of Health estimates that ED affects as many as 30 million men in the United States. Incidence increases with age: About 4 percent of men in their 50s and nearly 17 percent in their 60s experience a total inability to achieve an erection. The incidence jumps to 47 percent for men older than 75.
The impact of genuine ED on a man’s sex life is obvious, but what many men do not recognize is the fact that ED can also be a sign of cardiovascular disease, something not just related to the penis and performance.
The typical “treatment” for ED is a pharmaceutical pill. But a 2012 article in the International Journal of Impotence Research impressed me because it emphasized weight loss, antioxidants through diet and supplementation, reduced sugar, and physical and penile-specific exercises.
In most cases, I’m a big believer in lifestyle changes first and pharmaceutical solutions second, and this article provides solid ideas for taking that conservative approach.
According to David Meldrum, M.D., and colleagues from UCLA and the University of Naples, lifestyle changes should be integrated into any comprehensive approach to maximizing erectile function because they result in “greater overall success and patient satisfaction, as well as improved vascular health and longevity.”