A recent study published in December 2015, the Journal of Impotence Research, proved that men were blissfully unaware of the chief cause of ED.
This is especially sad: if you know the leading cause of your ED, it’s actually quite easy to heal without drugs.
The Polish researchers started from the well-proven fact that approximately 40% of ED cases were brought about by atherosclerotic disease, or hardening of the arteries.
When your arteries harden, they are no longer flexible enough to contract and expand to let enough blood through. This reduces the blood to your organs, including your penis, which needs blood to flow into it during an erection.
If you did not know this, you are not alone. The Polish scientists recruited 502 people who were undergoing treatment for ischemic heart disease, which always includes atherosclerosis. They wanted to know whether these men understood that their condition caused ED, and that there were certain things they could do to improve the heart disease and, consequently, the ED.
Of their 502 subjects, only 31 could name all six of the main ED risk factors of smoking, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and a sedentary lifestyle. In other words, only 31 of them knew that they could improve their ED by quitting smoking, losing weight, controlling their blood sugar, lowering their cholesterol, lowering their blood pressure, and getting some exercise.
A full 189 participants could name none of these modifiable risk factors.
I think the big pharmaceutical companies are partly to blame for this. We’re bombarded with erectile dysfunction ads day in and day out claiming that the only cure for erectile dysfunction is in a pill. Whereas lifestyle changes are much more effective.
So now that you know, what should you do about it?