Statins may help with erectile dysfunction

By Robert Cervin, June 10th, 2013 | Health | 0 Comments

A small study shows that statins may help men who do not respond to sildenafil.

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is often a sign of build up of plaque on the linings of blood vessels in several places in the body, including the penis. Therefore, there’s sometimes a link between ED and heart disease. ED can often be successful treated by sildenafil and related drugs, which restore penile blood flow. But they do not work on plaque.

A team at the University of Pennsylvania has discovered that a drug which helps prevent heart disease can also aid ED. They tried the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor in a group of a dozen men with ED who did not respond to sildenafil. They reported some improvement after they were treated with the statin and offered sildenafil again. These results must be regarded as preliminary but they do look promising.