If death doesn’t scare you enough to make radical changes to protect your heart health, how about a fate some guys might consider worse than death: impotence? We’re all too familiar with the grab-your-chest symptoms of heart attack and disease. Less well-known is that the artery supplying blood to the penis is much smaller than those that lead to the heart and, as a result, one of the first to get clogged by fatty plaque.
“What actually happens is that the arterial walls narrow, and so the velocity or the amount of the blood that can move through this artery is decreased,” says L. Dean Knoll, M.D., director of research at the Center for Urological Treatment and Research in Nashville. “And when the amount of blood is decreased, you can’t fill the spaces in the body of your penis.” In fact, one South Carolina study found that erection problems were 80 percent more likely in men with total cholesterol levels above 240 milligrams per deciliter than those with scores below 180 milligrams per deciliter. And while you’re watching those numbers, you probably should keep tabs on your blood pressure; hypertension has also been linked to erection problems, says Dr. Knoll.
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