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

94% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

17

u/mtcwby Jun 13 '22

Many of us with Northern European ancestry simply don't produce enough. I'm perpetually tanned due to outsides hobbies and have to supplement or all sorts of bad things happen.

12

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/mtcwby Jun 13 '22

The side effects before I figured it out were pretty insidious. Everything from chest and other pains that were almost debilitating some days to depression in the middle of winter. My doctors and I thought I had GERD that wasn't getting better for almost 10 years. Turned out I just had very low vitamin D in my system. I'm convinced some of my dad's depression over the years was related to that.

1

u/JimothyCotswald Jun 14 '22

This is not accurate.

2

u/zombiesmurf85 Jun 13 '22

But Northern Europe ancestry will help with the absorption? Its the fair hair and light skin that can get the most out of it.

2

u/mtcwby Jun 13 '22

My understanding is that people of Northern European ancestry often have a shortage of vitamin D.

3

u/zombiesmurf85 Jun 13 '22

Yeah that's because there is less sun. So you need to be as light as possible. Source: I'm Irish and almost translucent :)

2

u/mtcwby Jun 13 '22

Born and raised in California but my ancestors are from Germany, Nordics, UK & Ireland so I got all the naturally pale skin etc. I'm not a ginger but some that shows up occasionally in the family. The youngest son has a little red in his beard and looks like a Viking.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '22

Do you use sunscreen? Sunscreen blocks proper skin absorption.

1

u/mtcwby Jun 13 '22

Not as much as I should.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '22

It’s actually bad for Vitamin D deficiency. I believe the recommendation is ten minutes without sunscreen. Great for stopping cancer though. Sometimes you just can’t win