Nondrug solutions to achieve erections....

Today's Post: Thursday, 8-12-2010

This topic is in the health news this week. The supplement, Enzyte, is said to cause a potentially dangerous heart rhythm change.

Wikipedia lists its ingredients. I’ll come back to that at the end of this post.

Most of its ingredients are safe. But to be effective, taking larger amounts of many of them and taking them separately will get better results. But some people already do or don’t need to take some of them. One I’m not sure is safe or needed. Another causes problems for some people if they take too much. And one likely should be avoided if you take the more desirable one that it may have bad interactions with.

Also, taking omega 3 oils from supplements and eating safer varieties of wild caught fish plus learning how to slash your intake of omega 6 oils plus SLOWLY building up to vigorous exercise several times a week can strongly help prevent such heart rhythm changes.

In fact one of the reasons for the news item and this post is that supplements are only a part of nondrug solutions to achieve erections.

In people who have no serious vascular injuries or nerve damage the other three causes of ED are far more important. And many of these component supplements are only important as part of dealing with those 3 causes.

1. The other main reason for this post is that in this group of men, most of the erection problems are from moderately advanced or more cardiovascular disease.

So neither taking many of the supplements NOR taking the drugs will be as safe as they might be or as effective as they could be without making a massive and nondrug effort to correct this problem.

This step is not always easy to do. But it IS doable. And the more and better you do it, the less ED you will have from restrictions on your blood flow from cardiovascular disease. (You will also be dramatically less likely to get a heart attack or stroke.)

Here’s the basic outline of how to make your heart and blood vessels to your sexual parts healthy and clear.

a) One way to do this is by taking omega 3 oils from supplements and eating safer varieties of wild caught fish plus learning how to slash your intake of omega 6.

This helps lower triglycerides, lower inflammation as tested by the HS CRP test, and looks to help reduce excess bodyfat. The DASH II diet, which limits omega 6 intake by its food choices, also lowers high blood pressure.

b) SLOWLY building up to vigorous exercise several times a week can strongly prevent or reverse heart and cardiovascular disease. By doing such exercise in strength training and interval cardio sessions, the longer you keep doing them, we recently found out, the lower your triglycerides and LDL measure and the more your HDL goes up. This means you have less of the small particle LDL that is one of most potent causes of heart disease. Such exercise has also been shown to help prevent or reverse insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes; and the less of that you have the healthier and less clogged up your blood vessels become. Such exercise also lowers inflammation. And, on every day you exercise, your blood pressure is lower than it would have been if you didn’t exercise that day.

Such exercise also causes your body to release testosterone and growth hormone. So it has been proven to slow aging and the testosterone increases your libido.

Last, and in older men, far from least, sex can be vigorous and it’s dramatically easier to do it well if you are fit.

c) Escape the two little known heart killers and fatteners, soft drinks and high glycemic carbohydrates. The fatter you are, which comes from eating and drinking these things and NOT exercising mostly, the higher your blood pressure, the more physically challenging sex becomes, the less attractive you look, AND, we know now that those drinks and foods are causes of heart disease. THAT causes ED by cutting way down on the blood flow you need to have an erection.

Regular soft drinks contain high fructose corn syrup and were not that much better when they had sugar. They are super high glycemic and are extremely effective fatteners. They add calories and do NOT let your body know by making you less hungry. Worse, their high glycemic effect then creates extra hunger when your blood sugar roller coasters down. Diet soft drinks despite having no calories, are an effective drug to massively increase your appetite for sugary foods, so in practice they fatten just as much as regular soft drinks in most people.

The other high glycemic foods such as foods made with refined grains; potatoes – usually peeled and processed; sugar, high fructose corn syrup; and often with omega 6 oils or worse hydrogenated oils are even worse.

They often appear together, particularly in packaged snacks and desserts. Chips and French fries are also in this group. Their high glycemic effect tends to fatten and cause insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Because of their high omega 6 content, they increase inflammation. But even worse, it has recently been found that the more sugar and foods of this kind you eat, the higher your triglycerides and LDL go and the lower your HDL. Hydrogenated oils are beginning to be banned because they have this heart damaging effect. Recently, research has found that ingesting sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and refined grain foods do also!

d) If you stop eating the bad stuff and gradually exercise more each week PLUS just a bit of calorie restriction for which doing it every other day has proven effective without triggering the famine response, you can also remove excess fat.

Being less fat improves all your indicators of heart disease particularly by lowering high blood pressure, your self-esteem goes up, you look better, and your blood flow improves.

e) Escape from or avoid tobacco smoke.

Few smokers know it yet, unfortunately, but every cigarette they smoke moves all their heart health indicators the wrong way and begins to cause plaque deposits on their artery walls leading to strokes, heart attacks, AND ED.

(Many doctors know this because they have seen the excess plaque build up in the tests for it in smokers.)

This is true even for teenaged smokers just beginning and for kids exposed to second hand smoke.

Second hand smoke has these same effects.

Tobacco smoke also speeds aging and causes about 30 % of all cancers. But that’s the little problem with smoking!! Some smokers DO escape cancer; but they ALL get cardiovascular disease – and most of them do eventually get ED.

Lastly, in both smokers and the people exposed to their second hand smoke, we recently discovered that tobacco smoke often triggers heart attacks in people who would otherwise have escaped them.

f) Consider taking 300 mg of niacin after meals twice a day and taking two 300 mg capsules a day of inositol hexaniacinate, also called, inositol hexanicotinate. (That supplement, often marketed as no flush niacin, is effective but not as effective; but it acts like a first rate time release version of niacin as your body digests it and does produce no flush. I think you do need to take it as an addition to niacin. But my readings improved after I added it to just taking the niacin.)

The niacin does sometimes cause a flush; but by taking it this way and in amounts that low, this is minimized.

In larger amounts than what I’ve just described, niacin can cause liver problems and should only be taken under management and periodic liver function tests by your doctor.

But it IS important to know, that the Berkeley Heart Lab found that in all the subgroups of genetic patterns of heart disease risk that all of them but one got MORE heart attack and plaque protection from niacin than they did from statin drugs.

Since statin drugs are not that effective in preventing heart disease or heart attacks and cost more and has some truly dreadful side effects in many people, only if you have had the Berkeley heart lab test showing you ARE in the group that does best taking it, in my opinion, you should take niacin instead.

For one thing, statins deplete CoQ10 which helps cause heart failure, speeds aging, and depletes your feeling of energy and well being. These are NOT effects conducive to desiring or having good sex even if you overcome ED. To be sure, you can take 100 mg of ubiquinol twice a day or three times a day to counteract this.

But, some doctors who prescribe statins still don’t know that. Mercifully, some cardiologists and better informed doctors are beginning to know about niacin and this side effect of statins.

g) If your LDL is over 130 on a test, another couple of ways to lower it to closer to 100 or less is to eat foods high in soluble fiber and take sterol supplements.

Lentils are the lowest glycemic food and one of the ones highest in nutrition. Other cooked beans also are high, (Note that cooked beans and lentils go well with extra virgin olive oil, tomato sauce, and garlic – each of which has heart protective effects.)

Rolled or steel cut oats, “Old Fashioned” oatmeal, also works but is high glycemic enough I’ve found I’m less fat if I only eat it every other day now.

Whole apples and unsweetened, “no sugar added” applesauce also are high in soluble fiber.

Whole fresh fruit has some soluble fiber. Nuts and vegetables are even better. They have soluble fiber, other valuable nutrients, AND they contain sterols which lower LDL cholesterol also.

Plus, you do NOT need eat the margarines that have sterols added to get sterol supplements.

Saw Palmetto besides easing or preventing prostate problems contains sterol. (This supplement in the Enzyte is a good one; but you likely need more than is in that supplement. And, it may be harmful to take avena sativa if you take saw palmetto according to one expert on the subject I spoke with once. So, by having both, that may be one reason Enzyte was causing bad reactions.)

Lastly, the sterol supplement I found very helpful in helping me lower my LDL from 130 to 100 or less, is beta sitosterol. Natrol makes in inexpensive beta sitosterol called Cholesterol Balance. I take three a day. And it costs very little.

Tomorrow, we’ll cover the other ways to improve or achieve erections. :

2. Stress can cause problems – bad ones for some people. But there are some solutions.

3. There are some foods and supplements that improve blood flow.

4. Besides exercise, there are other ways to increase testosterone and positive feelings. For this, there are supplements that help.

5. Some people know how to cause erections to begin on demand. Some people know what exercises help them occur and be stronger. But many people do not. And they work best when combined!

I believe that most of the men who are otherwise physically undamaged by serious vascular injury or nerve damage can do well with erections by using all 5 of these steps together. Some may still need Viagra or similar medicines. But not many, and those people will still have better erections and much better health if they have been using these 5 steps.