If you have erectile dysfunction and you start doing research on potential solutions, you’re going to be totally confused. The biggest strategies for this condition is all about just managing this condition. What about fixing it? People don’t really talk about that. There’s just a lot of data on viagra, different solutions, but what we’re going to do is focus more on the problem – the pathophysiology, the mechanism of how this condition could occur to try to understand the root cause of this, so you can resolve this condition.
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Erectile dysfunction causes
Many people assume that it’s just low testosterone and they just need to focus on that. But, there are people with normal testosterone that have erectile dysfunction. Also, there are people with abnormal testosterone or low testosterone and don’t have erectile dysfunction. So why does it happen? Testosterone is part of the answer. One of the most important molecules involved in erectile dysfunction is this thing called nitric oxide.
Our bodies can make it. We can get it from food. But, apparently nitric oxide decreases as you get older. It’s at a level of 50% when you reach age 40 and nitric oxide is a major player in erections. In fact, viagra uses certain nitric oxide pathways and so the most likely reason for someone with erectile dysfunction has to do with a deficiency of this molecule nitric oxide.
Understanding nitric oxide and erectile dysfunction
The nitric oxide is made by your endothelial cells. So nitric oxide it has everything to do with helping the arteries vasodilate. In fact, it’s involved in something called endothelium derived relaxing factor EDRF. So, nitric oxide helps relax your arteries and it increases blood flow not just with erections, but also your cardiovascular system and other systems in the body. And if you have low nitric oxide, you could have asthma for example. It’s intimately involved with the tone of the vascular system that relates to vasoconstriction and vasodilation.
Nitric oxide increases oxygen release in your blood. If you don’t have enough nitric oxide, you’re going to have a hard time breathing. The 79% of people with sleep apnea have erectile dysfunction and so that’s one connection. Another link would be the relationship between nitric oxide and cortisol. It helps to regulate cortisol which is a stress hormone. It’s a proven fact that the more anxiety someone has, the more cortisol someone has, the more stress they have, the more they’re going to experience erectile dysfunction.
In fact, someone cannot get an erection when they’re sympathetic dominant, where there’s a lot of stress. Erections occur when you’re more parasympathetic dominant, when you have low amounts of stress, when you’re calm. This is why men might get an erection while they’re sleeping because they’re more parasympathetic dominant. Also, nitric oxide has a profound effect over testicular steroids. This means that it helps you make testosterone. If you’re low in nitric oxide, you’re probably not going to make as much testosterone.
Nitric oxide is also involved in luteinizing hormone. That’s the hormone produced by the pituitary gland that controls the testicles and the amount of testosterone you’re going to make. Nitric oxide also is intimately involved in the sleep cycles including REM sleep. This could be also why if someone has sleeping problems insomnia or definitely sleep apnea, that they have a greater risk of erectile dysfunction.
Nitric oxide also increases insulin sensitivity. This also explains, why a diabetic who always has insulin resistance usually, also has erectile dysfunction. High sugar inside of your arteries destroys the endothelial level and decreasing the amount of nitric oxide produced. People that are on statin drugs usually have either lower testosterone or they’re at greater risk for erectile dysfunction. This could be because statin drugs block cholesterol, which is a precursor for making testosterone.
How to naturally increase nitric oxide
- You can start doing what’s called nasal breathing, start breathing through your nose, not your mouth. Apparently, when you do that, you increase nitric oxide and you can also increase the release of oxygen in your blood by 20% by breathing through your nose because there’s actually 50% more resistance with breathing through your nose than your mouth. Apparently, that increases nitric oxide to your lungs and the rest of your body and it also helps you release oxygen. You would think you’re not going to breathe as much, but you actually release more oxygen, when you breathe through your nose. you can combine this with number two, which is “regular exercise”.
- Regular exercise. For example, you’re going to do a mild exercise, where you’re doing some type of exercise, where you’re not breathing intensively. If you can breathe through your nose, you will then increase nitric oxide and exercise improves your endothelial cells in your vascular system, which will then improve nitric oxide.
- You can also increase nitrates from foods to improve nitric oxide. The foods that are high in nitrates would be beets, spinach, kale, any of the leafy greens – will help you increase nitric oxide.
- Of course, on the flip side you would want to avoid sugar because that destroys the inside of the arteries. You would want to avoid alcohol too because that also decreases nitric oxide. You’d also want to try to keep your stress low because stress can inhibit nitric oxide as well.
- Do things to improve your sleep. That’s going to help increase your nitric oxide.
So, these are five natural things you can do to overcome the decrease of nitric oxide which comes from aging.
I’m glad that you’re writing about this topic. I haven’t seen too many doctors talk about it especially not from a physiological standpoint. Also , I think I’ve heard about nitric oxide in a book once. Or at least nitric oxide synthase or something like that. It’s nice to here about it in a specific context because it helps me understand it better !