Sex may be pervasive in our popular culture, but conversations about it are still associated with stigma and shame in Indian homes. As a result, most individuals dealing with sexual health issues or trying to find information about sex often resort to unverified online sources or follow unscientific advice from their friends.
To dispel widespread misinformation about sex, News18.com is running this weekly sex column, titled ‘Let’s Talk Sex’. We hope to start the conversation about sex with this column and address issues of sexual health with scientific insight and nuance.
The column is being written by Sexologist Prof (Dr) Summary Jain. In today’s column, Dr. Jain discusses the connection between high blood pressure and erectile dysfunction.
High blood pressure (hypertension) is a major cause of erectile dysfunction; This puts people at higher risk of ED. When your blood flows naturally, you can have healthy erections. Natural stimulation increases blood flow to your penis, which leads to an erection. This process becomes more difficult with high blood pressure. In this case, the blood vessels constrict, slowing down the natural flow of blood. High blood pressure not only increases your risk of stroke or heart attack, but it also complicates erection. Men with high blood pressure are almost twice as likely to have erectile dysfunction and impaired penile blood flow than men with normal blood pressure.
Why high blood pressure is a silent killer
High blood pressure develops for many reasons, including medical conditions such as kidney disease and lifestyle choices such as smoking or a high sodium diet. Sometimes people develop high blood pressure for no identifiable reason.
Even if you have high blood pressure, untreated chronic high blood pressure damages your heart and blood vessels and eventually leads to life-threatening medical conditions such as heart disease and stroke. And because the condition doesn’t come with noticeable symptoms, doctors call it the “silent killer.”
The link between erectile dysfunction and high blood pressure
To understand how high blood pressure can lead to erectile dysfunction, you first need to understand how erections work. Getting an erection is a complicated process.
The shaft of the penis consists of two adjacent chambers of spongy tissue called the corpora cavernosa. They are made up of small arteries and veins, smooth muscle fibers and empty spaces. The chambers are wrapped in a sheath of thin tissue.
This is how you get an erection: Signals from the brain travel through the veins to the penis and cause the smooth muscles of the chambers to relax and the arteries to dilate, or widen. This allows a rush of blood to fill the blank. The pressure of the blood flow causes the sheath of tissue around the chambers to press on the veins that normally pump blood out of the penis. Due to which blood gets collected in the penis. As more blood flows through, the penis expands and hardens, and so does your erection.
High blood pressure damages your blood vessels and arteries, making it impossible for the arteries that supply blood to your penis to function as they are supposed to. It also affects the muscles of the penis by causing an inability to relax. As a result, your penis doesn’t get enough blood to erect or keep it erect. In addition, your risk of low testosterone is almost two times higher if you have high blood pressure. While the relationship between high blood pressure and low testosterone is still being investigated, having low testosterone may contribute to erectile problems and low libido.
Treatment options for men with high blood pressure and erectile dysfunction
Keeping high blood pressure under control is essential for your overall health. Each year, this silent killer kills or contributes to about half a million people, but only one in every four adults with high blood pressure has the condition under control.
It’s important to take steps to lower your blood pressure, if recommended by your doctor, through lifestyle changes and medications. Unfortunately, many medications prescribed to help lower blood pressure can worsen your erectile dysfunction because they affect blood flow. Sometimes, the options that some men with high blood pressure opt for can exacerbate the problem. Smoking, in particular, is one of them. Smoking elevates blood pressure, and damages blood vessels and reduces blood flow to the body.
By living a healthy lifestyle and working with your doctor, there is a chance that you will be able to have normal sexual function again. You may have more success in treating erection problems if you incorporate these lifestyle changes to manage blood pressure:
• Eating well and exercising regularly will help prevent and manage high blood pressure.
• If you need help managing your blood pressure, try the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. It can lower blood pressure in as little as two weeks. In general, the DASH diet emphasizes eating whole grains, vegetables, fruits and low-fat dairy products while limiting salt, fat and sugar.
• You should limit sodium to 1,500 milligrams per day. That’s about two-thirds of a teaspoon of table salt. Prefer fresh foods that do not contain any preservatives or fats. Also, read food labels to check the amount of sodium in a serving, and don’t add any added salt.
• Burning calories through exercise helps you tone your body and lose weight. Being overweight increases the chances of erectile dysfunction.
• When it comes to exercise, you don’t have to do intense workouts. Just find a way to keep your body moving and your heart rate up with 30 minutes of moderate exercise five days a week.
• If you are a smoker, look into quitting smoking programs and get help from your doctor, family and friends.
If you experience erectile dysfunction soon after starting treatment with any high blood pressure medicine, talk to your doctor. They can work with you to recommend an alternative to an existing medication or to troubleshoot your problem. Keep in mind that different drugs have different half-lives, which means it may take several days or several weeks for the drug to pass out of your body, so your erection may return after stopping the high blood pressure medication. It may take some time to arrive.
read all Breaking News , today’s fresh news And IPL 2022 Live Updates Here.