Age, obesity, high cholesterol, and high triglyceride measurements in midlife predict not only heart disease risks, but also the likelihood of erectile dysfunction decades later, according to a new study in the April 21, 2004 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“Patients may be more inclined to use lipid-lowering medications if they can prevent erectile dysfunction, as well as heart disease. Now researchers should include erectile dysfunction as an outcome in trials of statin drugs,” said corresponding author Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, MD, from the University of California in San Diego.
The researchers traced men who had participated in a heart disease risk study in the mid-1970s and asked them to fill out a standard questionnaire on erectile function, known as the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5). Between 1972 and 1974, 82 percent of the adult residents of Rancho Bernardo, Calif. participated in a survey of coronary heart disease risk factors. The participants, who were age 30 to 69 at the time, underwent a baseline clinical evaluation that included a brief medical and medication history and measurement of height, weight, blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels.
Of the 1,810 men who had taken part in the original study, researchers sent surveys to 944 men who were still living in 1998. Their analysis was based on 570 surveys that were returned with complete answers to the erectile function questions.
Mean age, body mass index, cholesterol, and triglycerides were each significantly associated with an increased risk of erectile dysfunction. Cigarette smoking was marginally more common in those with severe or complete erectile dysfunction, as compared with those without erectile dysfunction. Blood pressure and fasting blood glucose were not significantly associated with erectile dysfunction. The authors wrote that the lack of association was probably due to higher death rates among men with higher blood pressure or blood sugar levels.
Dr. Barrett-Connor noted that most studies have looked just at snapshots of current risk factor measurements and erectile dysfunction, and many have used different ways of assessing erectile dysfunction.
“The Rancho Bernardo Study is a prospective study of community-dwelling men with a long follow up, from midlife to old age. In addition, the original researchers used excellent quality coronary heart disease risk factors for the baseline measurements. Another strength of this analysis is that we used a widely accepted international standard for rating erectile function,” Dr. Barrett-Connor said.