Erection problems may signal heart disease

According to a new study, men who complain of erection problems, have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and angina.

Researchers suggest such men should be should be checked and monitored for heart disease.

Apparently more than 10 million men in the United States are affected by erectile dysfunction (ED), with an estimated 100 million men affected worldwide are affected by the condition.

Erectile dysfunction can be related to a range of factors including age, smoking, diabetes, heart disease, depression, and hypertension.

Sufferers can quite easily obtain pharmacological relief for the problem from a physician, but the researchers say they believe that erectile dysfunction can be a warning symptom in patients with cardiovascular disease.

In this study Dr.Ian M. Thompson, of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and colleagues looked at a group of men who were assessed for ED and subsequent cardiovascular disease over the course of 7 years.

The men all aged 55 years or older and had taken part in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial at 221 U.S. centers and were randomly placed into a placebo group.

Between 1994 and 2003 they were checked every 3 months for cardiovascular disease and erectile dysfunction.

At the start of the study age, body mass index, blood pressure, serum lipids, diabetes, family history of heart attack, race, smoking history, current use of antihypertensive medication, physical activity, and quality of life, were all taken into account.

It seems of the 9,457 men, 85 percent had no cardiovascular disease at start of the study; of these men, 47 percent of this group had erectile dysfunction at that time.

Among the 4,247 men without erectile dysfunction at study entry, 57 percent reported incident erectile dysfunction after 5 years.

The researchers calculated that erectile dysfunction was associated with a 25 percent increased risk for subsequent cardiovascular events during study follow-up.

For men with either incident or prevalent erectile dysfunction, the increased risk was 45 percent.

Dr. Thompson says that the study provides the first evidence of a strong association between erectile dysfunction and heart disease.

The study is published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.