Diabetes: The silent cause of ED

More than 50% of men with diabetes also experience ED and Erectile Dysfunction Treatment is important. We look at how this metabolic disease can damage your circulatory system and affect your erectile health.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes mellitus, commonly referred to as just diabetes, is a disease whose main effect is high blood sugar levels. It’s a metabolic disease, i.e, it is an issue that affects your body’s ability to metabolise or process sugar.

This happens because of diabetes’ effect on insulin. Insulin the main hormone in our bodies that is in charge of processing and moving sugar from the blood into a form of energy that can be used by organs, muscles, etc.

For a person who has diabetes, their body is unable to produce sufficient amounts of insulin to transform sugar in the blood into energy, or is simply unable to effectively use the insulin that it already has to conduct this process. Thus, sugar levels in the blood remain high, and energy levels remain low.

Diabetes can be of different types. The most well known are Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, with Type 2 diabetes being the more common out of the two.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, which is a type of disease wherein your body’s immune system attacks itself, mistakenly identifying it as dangerous. With Type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks and destroys pancreatic cells where insulin is produced.

Type 2 diabetes usually occurs later in life, and happens through your body gradually developing a resistance to insulin.

When diabetes is left untreated and blood sugar levels become too high, your eyes, kidneys, nerves, organs and other parts of your body can all be adversely affected and damaged.

Can it cause ED?

Unfortunately, diabetes in men is also linked to a greater prevalence of erectile dysfunction, a lowered sex drive, and poorer cardiovascular health. In fact, diabetes can often be a direct cause of ED.

This is because of the way in which diabetes affects your circulation and the health and capacity of your blood vessels. Erections occur through a complex process of various signals from your body, brain, nerves and hormones, and the main effect of all of these is that your body pumps more blood into your penis and stops it from flowing out, causing it to become hard. The main participant in allowing this process to happen successfully is the constriction and dilation of your blood vessels.

When you’re diabetic, your blood vessels — as well as your nerves — are far more likely to get damaged. Diabetic people are more likely to have narrower blood vessels, which are not capable of letting enough blood flow through them to cause an erection. And since your circulatory health can be damaged by diabetes on a more broad base as well, ED has become a very common sign of diabetes in men.

How common is diabetes-linked ED?

Diabetes-linked ED is incredibly common, because of the very direct effect that diabetes has on circulatory health, and because of how crucial circulatory health is for erections. Studies have found that more 50% of men with diabetes experience ED. Furthermore, men with diabetes are 3.5 times the risk of developing ED than men without diabetes.

s you get older, the risk of diabetes-related ED increases. For example, diabetic men over the age of 70 have a 95% chance of experiencing ED. ED also tends to show up around 10 years earlier for men with diabetes than for those without.

Can I get treatment for it?

When it comes to diabetes-linked ED, one of ways you can address it and stop it hindering your sex life is through prescription ED drugs like Sildenafil and Tadalafil. These are both medically tested, proven medications that can help you overcome ED, have better erections and control the timing of them. They both work by inhibiting PDE5, which is a type of enzyme whose actions make it harder to get and maintain an erection.

If diabetes is also causing you to experience low testosterone or a low libido, your doctor might suggest that you consult with a specialist, such as an endocrinologist or urologist, to better address those concerns. One of the effects of diabetes is low testosterone, which in turn causes a low sex drive, depression, fatigue, etc. If necessary, your doctor may also suggest hormonal therapy for cases of low testosterone. This can also help improve your sexual health and wellness.

How can I reduce my risk of diabetes?

There are certain high-risk factors and causes for developing diabetes. Some of them are as follows:

● Children and teenagers are more likely to have Type 1 diabetes, and there is some amount of a genetic component to the disease.

● For Type 2 diabetes, you’re more at risk if you:

○ are overweight,

○ are above 45 years of age,

○ have a parent or sibling with diabetes,

○ are not physically active,

○ have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or high triglycerides,

○ are a smoker.

Since cases of diabetes have become more prevalent with every successive generation, it’s important to also know how you can reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, and thereby keeping your sexual health in good form as well.

Some of the best ways to keep your blood glucose levels under control and reduce your risk of developing an insulin tolerance is to quit smoking, consume less alcohol (or eliminate it completely), get regular exercise on a daily or weekly basis, and maintain a healthy weight Premature Ejaculation Cure.

Balancing your meals and monitoring your dietary intake is also a good way to make sure you’re eating healthily enough and not consuming more amounts of sugar than you need to. Avoiding excess sugar is an important consideration, especially in the form of sweets, candies and carbonated drinks like sweetened sodas. You should also try to get an even mixture of starch or carbohydrates, fruit and vegetables, fats and proteins from your diet. It’s also recommended to cut out saturated and trans fats as well as refined carbohydrates from your diet.

If you have a family history of diabetes, you’re more at risk for developing it than someone who doesn’t have such a family history. Therefore, it’s important to make sure you consult with your doctor, have regular check-ups, and regularly monitor your blood sugar levels, so that you can catch a case of pre-diabetes or a trend towards developing diabetes before it actually occurs.