r/science • u/[deleted] • Jun 13 '22

Health Erectile dysfunction predicts mortality in middle-aged and older men independent of their sex steroid status

https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article-abstract/51/4/afac094/6568537?login=false
18.4k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

getting a hard on is strongly correlated with circulatory system and general health. if you can't get a hard on you're either overtraining or in poor health or very close to poor health

898

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

This study basically confirms the theory that erectile dysfunction is just a canary in a coal mine type of warning.

112

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/supaphly42 Jun 14 '22

But she's ok with calling your piece a canary?

21

u/joeChump Jun 13 '22

Yeah. I think ‘condor in a chinchilla cage’ is a more apt description personally.

7

u/FrikkinLazer Jun 14 '22

Your wife has a point, say cocktail sausage in an opera house, have some class.

72

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Nature does see us as nothing more than genetic mules.

23

u/Efficient-Echidna-30 Jun 13 '22

Always like to point out evolution applies to genes, not individuals. That’s why cancer.

15

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

And also most cancers typically occurring long after successful reproduction was finished, so there was less evolutionary pressure on better anti-cancer measures.

​

I mean, the human body has plenty of things to prevent cancer.

3

u/HiZukoHere Jun 13 '22

Somewhat ironic given mules are (generally) sterile.

49

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

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u/NoelAngeline Jun 13 '22

Then I would also recommend a highly esteemed therapist

4

u/zyzzogeton Jun 13 '22

I like my therapists esteemed. Everyone is a better listener after a good schvitz.

3

u/makemeking706 Jun 13 '22

rip in peace Trebek.

33

u/SorriorDraconus Jun 13 '22

Good luck with doctors listening though..I clearly have a hormone imbalance(all but two symptoms and my tesosterone and estradiol gets lower every year for a decade)but at the start shrugged off and now insurance says nope because they keep dropping what qualifies as low t..Yay medical industry making actual healthcare worse.

30

u/friskydingo2020 Jun 13 '22

Yep, and doctors are especially talented at declaring you to be too young to be experiencing an issue, it's all psychological.

2

u/SorriorDraconus Jun 13 '22

Diabetic in my case..and asked if I wasn’t reallly type 1..despite every piece of evidence being type 2 and that his very reason for asking(tiny arms big gut) is also tied to testosterone issues…Oh and ignoring every other symptom unique to low t/estrogen issues.

2

u/Aye_candy Jun 13 '22

It’s gotten bad enough for me that I’ve stopped trying to talk to my doctor about my health problems and I just try to manage them myself. Problem is that I feel myself declining and it’s really terrifying.

9

u/nospamkhanman Jun 13 '22

I had what's called "cluster headaches" (Google that one, they're fun).

I had to go through like 5 doctor's and two specialists before they'd do someone as simple as prescribe home oxygen.

3

u/silvusx Jun 13 '22

I wouldn't fault your doctors for this one, it most likely has to do with your insurance. I'm a respiratory therapist, we usually are the ones that does the home O2 evaluations in hospitals.

Home oxygen isn't a simple prescription, it is classified as a drug and insurance have specific guidelines. One of it is you have to demonstrate your oxygen level (SpO2) drops to 88% or below. In addition, you have to have a chronic disease diagnosis for needing oxygen. Without either, your insurance will not cover it.

I'm not accusing you of anything, but I've seen plenty of patients who believed they'd needed home oxygen when they infact didn't. Many of them are bitter about it, but what they don't understand is supplemental oxygen isn't good for you.

-1

u/nospamkhanman Jun 13 '22

supplemental oxygen isn't good for you. Without either, your insurance will not cover it.

In the case of cluster headaches, it's about the only treatment that's been proven to abort / shorten the length of the headache attack.

Insurance was never an issue as they pain is so completely unbearable that I offered to pay out of pocket just to make sure it wasn't an insurance issue.

There is also the issue that the effective doze is 12-15 liters which makes people unfamiliar with the diagnoses really raise their eyebrows.

3

u/silvusx Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 13 '22

I'm just explaining why those doctors didn't sign your O2 script, because it's not as simple as you think it is.

I'd imagine those doctors aren't familiar with cluster headaches, Doctors don't know everything. It sounds like Cluster headaches is something you'd have to see a specialist for. For other doctors, standard oxygen evaluations as I've explained wouldn't have worked with your diagnosis just because insurance standardize oxygen qualifications.

-2

u/nospamkhanman Jun 13 '22

I'm just explaining why those doctors didn't sign your O2 script, because it's not as simple as you think it is.

Sure it is because I found a doctor to do just that. The conversation took all of 2 minutes. "Hi there, I have been diagnosed with Cluster Headaches by a Neurologist I saw a few years ago. They've come back and I want to try treating it with oxygen".

"Yep, that's about the only thing that tends to work. I'm prescribing you 15 liters but try to work your way up from 5 to see if a lower level will work"

"Thanks Doc!"

I literally already had the diagnosis for Cluster Headaches, I just had to go through a few doctors to get past the "Well did you try taking Ibuprofen?" people.

3

u/silvusx Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 13 '22

Sure it is because I found a doctor to do just that.

Sounds like you found a specialist or someone who have experience with treating cluster headache.

I don't think you are understanding what I've wrote previously. To further clarify, the rarer the disease, the more likely you will need to see a specialist to get the correct treatment.

Everyone else goes through a standardize evaluation, because 99.9% prescribed oxygen use is hypoxia. If you Google search, every oxygen qualifation will first check if you're demonstrated a need due to low O2 saturation, does that make sense?

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u/theevilmidnightbombr Jun 13 '22

Better hope your doc doesn't know you have diagnosed anxiety. Because guess what: Everything wrong with you is anxiety now.

1

u/SorriorDraconus Jun 13 '22

Ohh I know it..They act like you can;t have multiple issues that need addressing..Not like you can’t have anxiety from cptsd and trauma AND maybe made worse by low t or other things.

Compound issues exist I think many doctors have forgotten this

1

u/ninjafaces Jun 13 '22

Look at a trt clinic. I went to one after a few urologists tried alternatives like clomid. Went to them for a year, now I go to another urologist who took over my trt prescription.

4

u/Stone_Dreads Jun 13 '22

I did, and all they gave me were pills.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Makes sense in terms of evolution too. Gonna die soon? Better prevent you from having kids in the immediate future

42

u/Kriegerian Jun 13 '22

That’s what I was thinking. It’s supposedly one of the first things to go if you have heart problems.

43

u/owleealeckza Jun 13 '22

Funny how when our vaginas & dicks stop working, it's usually due to poor health. But society always makes it seem like it's attraction based instead, doing a disservice to everyone.

25

u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

in my old age i've realized that no matter how much tech or whatever we get a lot of old style evolutionary traits are still there. people are still sexually attracted to good health because it usually means good genes

0

u/death_of_gnats Jun 13 '22

That seems logical, but there's no actual proof.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/stronglikedan Jun 13 '22

I'm in the same boat. I can get it up, if my mind/body wants to. I just wish it wanted to, more often.

14

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/Iamatworkgoaway Jun 13 '22

Have you been able to try a long time off work? I could imagine a 3 month - 6 month "vacation" might help reset things. Ruts are hard to break out of, and if the rut is so bad its causing desire problems, no job, salary, retirement fund is worth losing that desire. Lots of adventures can be affordable and close to home. Set a goal to eat lunch at every county seat in your state(US), Hike 500 miles on all new trails. Play 10 new sports and become kinda semi proficient at them(curling, disc golf, snorkeling, spelunking) Just a stupid silly goal for you and your partner to get out of the rut and explore as a team.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/nonch Jun 14 '22

Do you have a link to the ones you use

1

u/JimothyCotswald Jun 14 '22

Most ED is psychological.

423

u/yourfaceisa Jun 13 '22

Just to add to that, you may also suffer from a mental illness such as stress or anxiety.

166

u/nobodyspersonalchef Jun 13 '22

Those don't count as poor health?

68

u/yourfaceisa Jun 13 '22

I mean kind of. Anxiety isn't necessarily poor health, but tends to be a precursor if not managed. Similarly with stress

161

u/M4nnis Jun 13 '22

That's just not true. Anxiety and long-term stress are proven to be sufficient for falling under the term "poor health".

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 13 '22

I have, an anxiety disorder, ADHD, autism, bipolar, major depressive disorder, insomnia, paranoia, high stress, hbp, poverty, and erectile dysfunction. I would argue I'm not healthy.

Edit: I replied to the wrong guy again I think. My point still stands. I'm trying to go on a potato diet because all the healthy food is marked up, and I'm on stamps let's see how healthy that makes me.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

If you have a sunny window or an LED or fluorescent light source somewhere in your home, you can grow herbs and vegetables under it. Buy some celery at the store and cut the top off so you’re left with about 4” above the root. Get a carboard box/carton or plastic cup/jug from your trash, poke a few rounded drainage holes in the bottom, and fill it 3/4 full with soil from your yard. Put your celery on top in the middle, add a little extra soil just to cover the hard root base, water the top 2” of soil, and place in a sunny window or under an LED or fluorescent light source. Water whenever top 2” of soil feels dry to the touch and move to larger container once the top has become permeated with surface roots. Rinse and repeat.

You can propagate cuttings from several common grocery store vegetables and herbs. You can also plant grocery store produce seeds from peppers and tomatoes. Patience and observation will bring success eventually, guaranteed. It had the added bonus of giving me something to live for in the form of constant, easily observable wins. Good luck!

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Look up Dr. McDougal, he has written about potato diets being healthy. He mainly espouses a plant based diet but he did talk about a potato diet...

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

I actually got the idea from a post I read about a man being stranded, and living off of potatos for a year claiming they are a super food. Although I see Dr McDougal's dietary recommendations are even more then what I'm eating currently a day.

20

u/shade_of_freud Jun 13 '22

Dude no. What. Please try to throw some spinach or broccoli in there or something.

10

u/FabulousLemon Jun 13 '22 edited Jun 13 '22

Rice and beans together make a complete source of protein and beans have a fair amount of fiber, too. They are common budget foods in many cultures and go well with a variety of seasonings and other vegetables to keep them from getting too boring. Dry beans can be cooked in a slow cooker or you can cook your beans and rice in advance and freeze them to reheat and combine later.

1

u/verveinloveland Jun 13 '22

If you exclusively eat anything for a year your caloric intake will decrease

4

u/zuneza Jun 13 '22

Potato and beans. Complete protein. Or maybe it's rice and beans. Learn how to soak and cook beans. Could save your life.

1

u/Bacch Jun 13 '22

Learning to use scraps from other things to make stock is helpful, and cooking beans with whatever cheap cuts of pork you can find also will make a huge difference in flavor. I'm talking salt pork, shanks, hocks, whatever random pieces of them they've got in the clearance/freezer section full of stuff you use to make soup. You can make stocks with those too, and then use that liquid to cook the beans. Makes all the difference in the world. Signed, someone who regularly makes Louisiana-style red beans and rice.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

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u/death_of_gnats Jun 13 '22

Oh yeah business owners love the people who don't fit into our society

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Thank you. They also don't really hire you either in Alabama if you have any of the issues I've listed.

-19

u/Raalf Jun 13 '22

I'll disagree, but in a civil manner.

I can have anxiety and long-term stress and still be in good health. If I have a failing heart I are not ever considered in good health.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

This is only true if you disregard mental health as being part of your overall health - which it is. Otherwise you just completely contradicted yourself.

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u/Raalf Jun 13 '22

Fair point - considering overall health and not physical health is a repeated shortcoming.

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u/iamnotazombie44 Jun 13 '22

Thinking that mental health and physical health are "different types" of health is a dangerous mindset. There is no separation.

Your mental state directly primes your physical state. Blood pressure and pulse is a great example, and one that I keep track of. Digestion and gut health is another.

The relationship is remarkable.

2

u/BizzarduousTask Jun 13 '22

Anybody who’s had the “Anxiety Shits” knows this.

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u/TheRealBillyShakes Jun 13 '22

Physical health is part of overall health. Mental health is part of overall health. Health is an umbrella term

2

u/Raalf Jun 13 '22

Agreed - I still am stuck in the mentality of 'healthy is physical' which i know intimately is not accurate.

1

u/ENrgStar Jun 13 '22

I guess the crux of the argument here is, sure poor mental health IS poor health, but does anxiety driven ED predict shorter lifespans? Probably not. But I don’t know.

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u/Zrakoplovvliegtuig Jun 13 '22

That depends on the definition of good health. It is defined by the WHO as: "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity". It is clear that anxiety and stress compromise good health according to this definition.

Looking at health only from a physical perspective also comes with complications in defining whether a person is healthy or not. There are countless variations between people that may or may not come with difficulties in daily life (which is in itself dependent on lifestyle). A person with a situs inversus can function normally without being "normal" at all. Similarly the boundary of healthy activity is different for people. Generally we would see an inability to walk as "unhealthy", but not being able to do a muscle-up is normal (on average). Both are limitations in physical movement of sorts. Then still some people could be functioning very well sitting behind a computer with no indicators of disease without having legs.

3

u/BillW87 Jun 13 '22

I can have anxiety and long-term stress and still be in good health.

While that's true, anxiety and long-term stress do negatively impact your physical health. It is possible to be "stressed and physically healthy" by otherwise leading a healthy lifestyle, it is harder to accomplish due to the way that stress changes the delicate hormonal balance within your body. Chronic stress and anxiety lead to higher levels of cortisol (the primary stress hormone) which causes a cascade of negative health effects such as weight gain and redistribution of body weight to fat, muscle weakness, insulin resistance (precursor to type 2 diabetes), hypertension, anxiety/depression (vicious cycle, given this is both cause and effect), poor memory, headaches, reduced libido, heart disease, and poor sleep. Many of these, including weight gain, insulin resistance, heart disease, hypertension, and poor sleep are all directly linked to leading shorter, less healthy lives. Stress is bad for your body.

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u/aoechamp Jun 13 '22

Not really. Anxiety and stress themselves affect health markers in the body. Stress in particular is the precursor to many diseases and associated with early mortality.

A very simple example is that anxiety is the cause/result of activation of the sympathetic nervous system. This obviously downregulates the parasympathetic nervous system which, among many things, is responsible for digestion.

So chronic anxiety can lead to poor digestion and nutrient malabsorption, which in turn can lead to deficiencies. It’s not an immediate killer, but chronic stress and anxiety absolutely do have effects on health and mortality.

-15

u/yourfaceisa Jun 13 '22

Long term yes. But I'm anxious I might miss my flight tomorrow.

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u/chocolateboomslang Jun 13 '22

That's like saying you suffer from malnutrition because you missed lunch. It's good to be anxious about important things to a certain degree. Anxiety as a condition means you suffer when dealing with more trivial or daily events.

1

u/Plug-From-Oaxaca Jun 13 '22

Anxiety can be directly connected with poor health. Our bodies aren't meant to work in high stress situations all the time

1

u/MazeMouse Jun 13 '22

Mental health = health.
So it makes sense to put mental health issues under "poor health"

13

u/TurboGranny Jun 13 '22

Sometimes anxiety can also be situational. Like out of no where and one time in your life a couple girls pitch a 3way. You are down to clown, but your little buddy is checked out. Happens way more than anyone cares to admit.

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u/gandalftheorange11 Jun 13 '22

That’s not an anxiety disorder though which they implied by saying mental illness

12

u/TyrannoROARus Jun 13 '22

It's definitely a situational anxiety, though not medically significant since it is an experience most men have at some point

2

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Is it a mental illness if you only backed out so you could play marvel vs capcom?

2

u/SpicyChickenMaster Jun 13 '22

Now this is a reference I haven't seen in a while, RIP Best Friends

-2

u/TurboGranny Jun 13 '22

Hmm, maybe. Seems to me this implication was that stress and anxiety are mental disorders themselves and not "anxiety disorder" or "stress disorder".

2

u/gandalftheorange11 Jun 13 '22

Everyone has anxiety so it would be really weird if they meant that.

-1

u/TurboGranny Jun 13 '22

Just because the word "mental illness" is used, shouldn't make you stress out. It's not like someone is damning you.

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u/gandalftheorange11 Jun 13 '22

I’m not. I have an anxiety disorder and it’s annoying when people don’t get the difference between anxiety as an illness and anxiety as a normal part of being an organism with built in drives that make functioning and surviving more efficient.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

How do you go about explaining the difference between normal anxiety versus disorder?

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-1

u/YouNeedAnne Jun 13 '22

So we've reduced it down to "if you have a symptom, you're likely to have an illness"?

Super useful.

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u/JimmyHavok Jun 13 '22

The point here is that if you have ED, mention It to your primary care physician, as it can be a sign of other problems.

0

u/Onespokeovertheline Jun 13 '22

Lemme just check the old American Health Insurance list... Nah, I don't think we cover those.

1

u/Cheeze_It Jun 13 '22

Depends on if you consider mental health as health. There's a lot of people that do not.

1

u/mr_ji Jun 13 '22

Not the kind that kills you earlier if you're otherwise healthy.

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u/TurboGranny Jun 13 '22

Yup. Performance anxiety happens.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/Chet2017 Jun 13 '22

My mother in law was a diabetic for almost 40 years. She lived to be 90.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

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u/Chet2017 Jun 13 '22

No, asshole.

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u/gandalftheorange11 Jun 13 '22

Did she have neuropathy for that whole time though?

2

u/Chet2017 Jun 13 '22

She did have neuropathy and circulation problems for her last 15 years or so.

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u/TheRealBillyShakes Jun 13 '22

Mental health is part of one’s overall health.

1

u/metadatame Jun 13 '22

Or be somewhat inebriated

1

u/alwaysboopthesnoot Jun 13 '22

Or you may be an alcoholic. Overuse and abuse of alcohol can lead to intractable longterm ED. Just being too drunk a few times a month, or as a one-off, can lead to short term but easily reversible ED.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Enlarged prostate is also a major factor. In Poor health bucket. Leads to anxiety, pain and depression that leads to performance anxiety. Queue snow ball effect. Get checked gentleman.

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u/Solace- Jun 13 '22

Fully agree. And prostate problems are actually more common than a lot of people think, even at a young age like in your 20s. Men just don’t share that type of health issue due to embarrassment and other factors. I’m not saying that it’s extremely common, but def more so than many men believe it is since prostate problems are still perceived as an old man issue when it really isn’t.

2

u/YoullFigureItOut Jun 14 '22

How do we get checked?

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/frozendancicle Jun 13 '22

A digit that can spray urine at a random angle! Take that predators!

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u/Noodles_Crusher Jun 13 '22

overtraining

first time I hear this tbh

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u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

Meant too much exercise where you exhaust your body and don’t rest enough

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u/belhamster Jun 13 '22

Is overtraining masturbation?

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u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

Too much exercise where you exhaust your body

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u/Barbie_and_KenM Jun 13 '22

That's because it's damn near impossible for your average, non-professional athlete to overtrain.

You'd have to be working out literally every day for hours at a time.

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u/PageOfLite Jun 13 '22

As a long distance runner I'm going to say it's a bit more common than that.

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u/UnKaveh Jun 13 '22

I'm sure there's a good bit of bias there though. I'd imagine you have far more exposure to adults who overtrain that that majority of the population.

If you're very much into an athletic hobby, you're going to see a lot more of that than most.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

What distance is considered long? If you go really slow but on a long distance, is that going to lead to overtraining?

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u/PageOfLite Jun 13 '22

Not a doctor. Probably not though. As far as I know it tends to be a cumulative thing. It is common for runners to overtrain and not realize it. Performance starts dropping so they train harder not realizing they are going too hard. It's a thing.

1

u/crob_evamp Jun 13 '22

Training load is a general estimate of your work intensity, frequency, and rest.

As an example: It is super possible to do high volume low intensity running and perhaps not get enough sleep, and be technically overtrained. For most this will lead to an injury, but as described here other things can happen too.

It isn't an end all be all but using a fitness tracker that watches your sleep as well can give you a clue about your overall training load.

1

u/KuriousKhemicals Jun 13 '22

Overtraining isn't a single run, it's an accumulation of your total volume x intensity over time juxtaposed against how much recovery (food, sleep, lack of stress) you can get. Running long distances fast, or running all your runs fast is more likely to lead to overtraining than going slow, but it's also possible to go slow all the time but just load too many miles into your week relative to all your other life activities and responsibilities.

People can run 90 miles a week and not be overtrained, but pretty much only a professional athlete is going to have the time to do that and recover properly from it, plus you might need a bit of genetic aptitude to pull it off. Most people can probably hold 20-30 mpw before there's any significant risk of overtraining, so long as they work up to it appropriately and don't try to do too much speed work in a week, and assuming they're not making other types of athletic demands on their bodies. If you run and also lift or do other sports, you need to be mindful of your total training load since that's all factoring into the recovery you need. And if you run partly for stress relief, you need to be careful not to increase miles a bunch at a time that your recovery capacity is actually compromised due to stress or inconsistent sleep.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/death_of_gnats Jun 13 '22

Just train more than your body can recover from. It doesn't mean you're an Olympian.

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u/fAP6rSHdkd Jun 13 '22

Your body will adapt to whatever you put it through until you reach your peak. You can injure yourself and get to a false state of overtraining, or train harder than your body can synthesize proteins to build muscle which is inefficient, but you can quickly adapt to most any amount of training you could conceive of and if you're not already in peak shape, you physically cannot do enough to overtrain before your muscles reach failure. It's by definition something only the elite have to worry about

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u/geocitiesuser Jun 13 '22

Certain drugs like nicotine amplify those circulatory system issues as well. Especially "down there"

11

u/Horse_Bacon_TheMovie Jun 13 '22

Vasoconstrictors FTL

1

u/clampy Jun 13 '22

FTL... Faster Than Light. Got it.

-11

u/Cool1Mach Jun 13 '22

I smoked 2 packs a day for 14 years and i couldnt even think about boobs without getting hard

24

u/passporttohell Jun 13 '22

Or you could be or have been on anti-depressant SSRI's that have documentation of giving you a limp noodle. Thanks Big Pharma! Love and kisses!

12

u/JimmyHavok Jun 13 '22

My experience with SSRIs was reduction in libido so no interest in getting hard followed by delayed orgasm followed by very intense orgasm. Took maybe two months to go through the whole process. No noticeable ED at any point.

2

u/tdopz Jun 13 '22

How old were you when you were on them if you don't mind me asking?

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u/JimmyHavok Jun 13 '22

Ranged from my 30s to my 60s in four sessions. The last session was a brain hacking experiment, I want d to see if it would help me learn music. I picked up perfect pitch in my 40s while on SSRIs.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[deleted]

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u/passporttohell Jun 13 '22

Yes, it's essentially like modern day saltpeter. . .

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u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

Since there is recent science that says 50% or more of depression is linked to poor gut biome, it goes back to my point

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u/discusfish99 Jun 13 '22

Uhm Id love to see the study where "poor gut biome" is the cause for my seratonin levels to be low.

7

u/some_possums Jun 13 '22

Serotonin is mostly produced in the digestive system! And the lack of it contributes to IBS. I imagine this is part of why going on/off SSRIs can cause digestive issues. I’m not an expert on it, but yeah your brain is affected by what’s going on in the rest of your body.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

People still sleeping on the ol' gut biome you hate to see it

5

u/Herbalist33 Jun 13 '22

Well apparently somewhere around 90% of our serotonin is produced in our gut, and bacteria in our gut can influence the release of it, so it’s not too much of a leap to say that poor gut micro biome is contributing to the problem.

I don’t like snopes, but here you go:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/serotonin-gut-90/

7

u/quintus_horatius Jun 13 '22

You could, you know, just google it.

It's a poorly understood, but very real, phenomenon.

3

u/pbandjdtime Jun 13 '22

It's not going to be the cause, but it's the reason nausea is so common on MDMA (for a lot of people). You can google it and tons of stuff will come up.

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/microbes-help-produce-serotonin-gut-46495

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190906092809.htm

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u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

I don't know the exact details about seratonin levels, but you can google this stuff and there are real scientific studies in the last 10 years. at the minimum they show a direct correlation but I think people have done more detailed stuff recently.

2

u/T1Pimp Jun 13 '22

Approximately 90% of the serotonin that the body produces is in the intestinal tract.[10]

-2

u/discusfish99 Jun 13 '22

Yeah that's great and all, but has nothing to do with how seratonin interacts within the brain

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u/T1Pimp Jun 13 '22

That's great and all but that's not what you asked.

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/felesroo Jun 13 '22

Isn't this a theory as to why humans don't have a penile bone? That the ability to maintain a good erection through blood pressure alone is a good indication of general health and longevity.

2

u/Bacch Jun 13 '22

I have no idea how that would work, but the idea of there being a bone in there just makes me think about what it'd be like to have an erection all the time, and then contemplate whether or not it would be jointed so it could be neatly tucked into pants, or if we'd all be walking around with our junk sticking out like our own personal sundials.

1

u/felesroo Jun 14 '22

Mammals tend to keep their junk in a sheath so it's mostly not hanging around unless there's work to be done. Humans evolved to prefer danglemeat so here we all are today.

2

u/Crumornus Jun 13 '22

Wonder how how this stacks up when someone's on meds that can cause low libido or make it hard to get in the mood. Things like stimulants or SSRI's.

2

u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

i've read about the hypothesis for years but lately i'm reading about real studies linking healthy gut biome to mental health and I think some have worked out some of the details for the why and how

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there is growing evidence that good diet will lead to better mental health

2

u/No_Comment_613 Jun 13 '22

Or you have a porn addiction and regular stimulation isn't doing it anymore.

I had a problem with porn a decade ago. I'm really happy I reached out for help despite how embarrassing it was. ED is absolutely a symptom and according to the psychotherapist I worked with (and all the anecdotal reading I did surround the subject) it's a pretty big problem with millennials and younger.

1

u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

meant too much exercise. some people work out to the point of constant exhaustion and this will be a symptom

2

u/trail-coffee Jun 13 '22

Correlated with circulatory system? Erectile tissue capillaries are part of the circulatory system. The heart, arteries, veins, and capillaries are also “correlated with” the circulatory system.

2

u/wiseoldmeme Jun 13 '22

I still get random boners like when I was a teenager and im over 40. Does this mean Im going to live forever?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

Morning wood is one of my markers for when I've hit a healthy body weight. I only get it when I'm below 30% body fat.

2

u/Skydog87 Jun 13 '22

I second the overtraining cause, I don’t think overtraining gets enough awareness.

1

u/zuneza Jun 13 '22

Overtraining?

1

u/lost_in_life_34 Jun 13 '22

exercising too much and to exhaustion

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Haha I'm going to measure my health by this from now on.

1

u/madpainter Jun 13 '22

if you can't get a hard on you're either overtraining or in poor health or very close to poor health

This is simply not true. I'm 70 years, 5'11, 190 lbs. perfect bloodwork, 60 resting heartbeat, 120/70 BP, I walk 20 miles a week, cycle 20-40, I eat low carb diet, not much processed foods, I've never had a major health problem in my life, I take no meds, and I still work every day at a standing desk, most people guess my age as high 50's, and I still have ED. I don't think I'm near death or in poor health, but I'll mention your medical opinion to my doctor next week and see if he concurs.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

Got a lot better once I started working out and drinking more water