viagra Exercise is Nature's Viagra

(HealthSCOUT) Forget Viagra. Men who take the time to get off the couch and break a sweat are more likely to work up a sweat in bed, new research shows.

Boston-area scientists say middle-age men who burn at least 200 calories a day -- the equivalent of walking two miles briskly -- greatly reduce their chances of impotence.

Exercise is most likely an erection-friendly pastime because it boosts overall cardiovascular health, says Henry Feldman, an impotence expert at the New England Research Institute in Watertown, Mass., and a co-author of the study, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Urology. "The same things that are good for your heart will also be good for erections, or vice versa," Feldman says.

Roughly half of men ages 40 to 70 have at least modest trouble achieving erection, experts say. While the causes of impotence are many, and range from physiological to emotional, evidence suggests that the condition is more common in men with poor circulation.

In the latest work, the researchers followed nearly 600 men over age 40 who had no complaints of erectile dysfunction when they started the study.

More than eight years later, 17 percent of the men had developed impotence. Those who smoked, were obese, or drank heavily at the beginning of the study were more likely to report erection problems at its end. Yet men who quit smoking, lost weight and stopped drinking during the period didn't seem to improve their likelihood of having normal erections.

Physical inactivity was also associated with erection problems, the researchers found. But men who began exercising regularly during the study, or who did so throughout, cut their risk of becoming impotent.

The effect was greatest for men who got the most vigorous exercise, those who burned at least 200 calories a day working out. They cut their risk of impotence in half compared to men who didn't exercise at all.

Dr. Jobe Metts, a urologist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, says the newest findings "make sense" in light of the overarching importance of general health for avoiding erectile dysfunction.

"I think it's long been suspected that many of the kinds of common health problems" like obesity, smoking and a sedentary lifestyle aggravate the risk of impotence, Metts says. "It's a hard thing to prove, but it's been pretty well indirectly shown," he says.

What To Do:

While quitting smoking might not stave off impotence, starting is a good way to bring it about. Studies show that cigarettes, cigars and even second-hand smoke all raise the risk of erectile dysfunction, Feldman says.

To learn more about erectile dysfunction, check out the Doctor's Guide online. You can also try this consensus report from the National Institutes of Health.