Deadly Dysfunction

If you want to lower your risk for the world’s leading killer—heart disease—then you have to be aware of what physical conditions contribute to it.  For instance, if you have high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol, then you’re a prime candidate for the disease that kills 2,500 Americans every day.

With proper nutrition and exercise, though, these risk factors can be reduced.  But what do you do if you have a condition that puts you at risk for heart disease that’s are beyond your control?

Erectile dysfunction is one such condition.  In 2006, a study out of the University of Chicago found erectile dysfunction was often a warning sign for eventual heart disease.  Four years after this revelation, the ED/heart disease link has deepened.  Research now indicates that people with ED aren’t just more likely to develop heart disease, but they’re more likely to die from it as well!

Researchers from the University of Saarland in Germany discovered this after reviewing the case history of over 1,500 men in 13 separate countries diagnosed with heart disease.  Confirming the 2006 study, the researchers found that the majority of the men had erectile dysfunction (55 percent).  But things really got interesting when the researchers looked at whether these men had died in the two-year study period.  Shockingly, the likelihood of men with erectile dysfunction being dead was twice that of men without erectile dysfunction.  Researchers found that 11.3 percent of men with erectile dysfunction died, a striking comparision to the 5.6 percent of men that had died but did not have ED.

The study is published in the journal Circulation.

Now, if you’re someone who looks to pharmaceutical-based solutions first for health problems, then you probably think a Viagra prescription will take care of this problem.

Au contraire.  In fact, researchers advise against using erectile dysfunction medications because all they do is mask the symptoms.  Similar to antidepressants’ inability to cure depression, drugs like Cialis and Viagra don’t cure ED.  They merely “resolve” the symptoms by temporarily increasing blood flow.

So, what’s the solution?  Natural treatment, of course.

To effectively (and naturally) treat erectile dysfunction, you have to take things that safely stimulate blood flow.  These things include L-arginine, which is an amino acid found in chicken, turkey, various beef products and oily fish like mackerel.  You can also get L-arginine in supplement form from reputable vitamin stores.  Nature’s Way is a great L-arginine supplement source.

Another way to stimulate blood flow is to make sure you’re getting enough zinc in your diet.  Zinc is essential for a healthy immune system, but the body uses it for many other things, like blood flow and circulation.   So try and figure out of how much zinc you’re getting in your diet by looking into what foods you tend to eat and whether or not those foods contain zinc (you should be getting about 100 milligrams per day, but no more than that).  Organ meats, lean beef, sesame seeds, shrimp, and crimini mushrooms are all great sources for zinc.

Finally, consider taking ginkgo.  Clinical studies have found ginkgo to be an effective treatment for depression, and studies suggest that ginkgo can counter the negative effects antidepressants have on the libido.  And similar to L-arginine, ginkgo helps stimulate greater blood flow, which is precisely what the body needs to overcome erectile dysfunction.

Sources
medicalnewstoday.com
newsmaxhealth.com
cdc.gov
ehow.com
whfoods.com