One More Reason For Men To Quit Smoking
Men, if the
risk of heart disease and cancer isn't enough to convince you to throw
out the cigarettes, consider this: they could make you impotent.
A new review
of the evidence, published in the Journal of Urology, concludes that smoking
compounds the negative effects of high blood pressure and hardening of
the arteries on a man's ability to achieve and maintain an erection.
Lead author
Kevin McVary, MD, of Northwestern University Medical School, explains that
the blood vessels of the penis are subject to the same degenerative diseases
of the blood vessels serving the heart, kidneys, brain, and other organs.
Smoking alters
the blood's ability to clot and exacerbates hypertension, or high blood
pressure. Impotence is a side effect of many of the drugs used to treat
hypertension. On a more promising note, the paper's authors noted that
the risk of impotence in men who quit smoking was no greater than it was
in men who had never smoked.
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Copyright 2001 by United
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