Smoking and Impotence

Male sexual impotence, sometimes referred to as erectile dysfunction, refers to a man's inability to sustain an erection during sexual intercourse. Sexual impotence becomes more common as men age, and it is estimated that roughly 30 million men in the United States are affected by some kind of sexual impotence. What causes erectile dysfunction? One of the difficulties in treating erectile dysfunction is that there are so many factors that can cause this disorder. There are many physical and psychological factors that can cause male sexual impotence; many times it's a combination of several factors that leads to the onset of erectile dysfunction. For instance, physical factors such as injury, diabetes, high blood pressure, and psychological factors such as depression, stress, and anxiety can all be responsible for causing erectile dysfunction. One factor that has recently been shown to cause male sexual impotence is smoking.

In fact, recent research studies indicate that smokers are nearly twice as likely to suffer from some form of erectile dysfunction. These studies even indicate that excessive exposure to second-hand cigarette smoke can also be responsible for causing sexual impotence difficulties. Why does smoking have such a strong impact on our body's ability to function properly during sexual encounters? There are many reasons why smoking can cause problems with sexual impotence. First, health professionals believe that smoking upsets our body's ability to function during sex because it disables our body's ability to coordinate properly. Smoking can affect our vascular system, which is responsible for pumping blood into muscle tissue, and it can upset our nervous system, which is responsible for sending chemical messages and releasing specific hormones. Cigarette smoking can upset the body's ability to coordinate the different messages that are sent by both our vascular and nervous system. This in turn can result in erectile dysfunction during sexual intercourse.

Another way that smoking cigarettes can upset a man's ability to sustain an erection during sexual intercourse is due to the fact that smoking often leads to artery blockage. When arteries become blocked, the body's ability to flow blood effectively throughout the body is greatly reduced. When arteries become blocked and blood flow becomes impossible, it can lead to a heart attack or stroke. But it can also lead to erectile dysfunction.

The harmful effects of smoking become compounded as the years pass. In recent studies, it was found that men who are long-term smokers are almost two times more likely to have experienced some form of sexual impotence. Even if the same men were not reporting any serious health threats such as lung disease or artery blockage, they were still more likely to have experienced some kind of impotence. The main culprit in the relationship between smoking and sex is related to the fact that smoking slows the body's ability to flow blood efficiently throughout the body. This results in a decline of blood pressure in the penis, thus causing erectile disorder. There does exist good news: men who stop smoking report less incidence of impotence, and some report that after quitting they never experienced impotence again.

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