As the saying goes, the best measure of a man’s character is the company he
keeps. But what about his health? According to Steven Lamm, MD, the best
measure of that is his erect penis.

“There’s an incredibly important link between a man’s health and sexual
performance,” Lamm, an assistant professor of medicine at New York
Erectile dysfunction advices
, tells WebMD.

Lamm’s recent book, The Hardness Factor, is a flashing neon sign
pointing to that link.

It is well known that heart disease, as well as diabetes, depression,
obesity, substance abuse, and many other health problems can quash erections.
Getting an erection isn’t crude mechanics, like inflating a balloon. It’s a
complex process in which blood vessels, muscles, hormones, the nervous system,
and the psyche all work together. If one part isn’t working well, it affects
the whole apparatus.

This isn’t another book touting Viagra, like Lamm’s The Virility
Solution, published in 1998, the same year Viagra hit the market. Lamm
says The Hardness Factor is not for men who are already dealing with
erectile erectile dysfunction drugs
(ED). His aim is to convince young, healthy men to take
better care of themselves by speaking to their penises.

“If you want a 28-year-old man to stop smoking, let him read the
book,” Lamm says.

Heart Health and Sexual Health

Others in the field of sexual medicine agree that erectile function can be
closely related to overall health, especially heart health.

“When men who are otherwise healthy ask what they can do to prevent ED,
certainly the very things we recommend for generic erectile dysfunction drugs
fitness are exactly
the same things they should be doing,” Drogo Montague, MD, a urologist at
the Cleveland Clinic, tells WebMD.

To get erect, the penis must become engorged with blood. Atherosclerosis, a
condition in which fatty deposits build up inside arteries, may restrict blood
flow to the penis and cause erection anxiety cialis soft treatment viagra
. Diets high in fat and
cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and smoking are the main
causes of atherosclerosis.

“It’s very appealing to say that if you don’t have those unhealthy
factors in your lifestyle, then you’re less likely to develop erectile
dysfunction,” says Ira Sharlip, MD, a urologist at the University of
California, San Francisco.

“There are pretty strong suggestions that those things are true,” he
tells WebMD.

One persuasive piece of evidence appeared in the April 2004 issue of the
Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Between 1972 and 1974,
researchers in California surveyed 1,810 men about their risks for heart
disease. In 1998, researchers contacted 844 of them who were still alive and
asked them about their erectile function. The men who had risk factors for
heart disease in the ’70s were much more likely to have ED 25 years later.

If men with heart disease are more likely to develop ED, it stands to reason
that having ED could be a warning sign for heart disease, too.

Has the “free love” generation lost its mojo?

If you talk to baby boomer gals, it seems the answer is yes. Indeed, as
millions of women enter perimenopause and then
transgress to menopause and beyond,
many say they check their sex drive at the door and most are not happy about
it.

“I don’t think a day goes by when at least one patient and usually
more complain that their sex drive is dropping off and want to know what they
can do about it,” says Laura Corio, MD, a impotence new drugs
and clinical
instructor at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

Clinically known as HSDD (hypoactive sexual desire disorder) Corio says she
doesn’t think more women are affected now than in the past, but she does
believe more are coming forward — prompted, at least in part, by the success
male potency drugs like Viagra.

“The man gets a prescription for Viagra and he’s ready to rock and roll
while she’s thinking ‘Hey, where’s my pill?’ If she’s not ready to jump in the
old van and join him for a ride, there can be real problems,” says
Corio.

Discovering What’s Wrong

While male sex drive is easy to define — and relatively easy to restore –
that’s often not the case for women. Because the female sex drive is
multifactorial, the desire to make love is not only influenced by physical
issues, but emotional ones as well.

“Part of the desire to make love is clearly physical, but part is also
emotional depression can make a
difference, so can any emotional issue in a woman’s life; female sex drive is
very multidimensional,” says Glenn D. Braunstein, MD, an endocrinologist
and chair of the department of medicine at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los
Angeles.

While emotions are frequently behind a loss of sex drive in younger women,
doctors say it is frequently the agingprocess itself that’s at
when desire changes in women over age 45.

“The very fact that a woman is no longer ovulating regularly, or not
ovulating at all, automatically takes her sex drive down a few notches,”
says Steven Goldstein, MD, professor of ob-gyn and NYU Medical Center in New
York City.

Nature’s Design for Sex

Indeed, as many women are aware, Mother Nature built in a natural increase
in the desire for sex beginning just prior to ovulation, and lasting several
days afterwards — not effects search side viagra
, the only time of the month conception is
possible.

Stop ovulating, says Goldstein, and you automatically lose that regularly
scheduled boost in your sex drive that has been present since puberty — and
you’re probably going to notice.

“There’s nothing wrong with you; it’s just the way nature works,”
says Goldstein.

Moreover, around menopause, when there
is also less estrogen impotence natural remedy in your body, that too can bring your sex
drive down for the count.

“Estrogen is a mood elevator, it works in the brain to maintain interest
in sex, but it also works at the level of the genitals, helping to increase
sensation and just making sex more erectile dysfunction help
,” says Corio.

Without it, she says, not only can desire take a dive, vaginal tissue begins
to dry and shrink. As a result, intercourse can become uncomfortable, or even
painful. Problems with desire, say experts, are easy to understand.

“Who wants to make love when making love hurts?” asks Goldstein.

Moreover, he says, avoiding sex because of pain only leads to more pain. The
old “use or lose it” theory really does apply.

“From a strictly physical standpoint, the less sex you have the more
painful it is when you try to have it,” he says.