No penis is an island. Or so J. Stephen Jones, M.D., F.A.C.S., a urologist with the Cleveland Clinic, likes to tell his patients. If your penis were an island, it would be tempting to think of it as a hot spot in the Caribbean—calm and tranquil during the day, throbbing with activity at night, and the destination of a constant rotation of half-naked coeds.
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As much as that sounds like paradise, Dr. Jones says a more precise urological/geographical parallel would be your penis as peninsula—a bodily extension that shares a supply of blood, oxygen, and nutrients with all your other organs. Unfortunately, that means if a natural disaster strikes the mainland, it’s likely to affect any protruding landmasses, too.
“ED stands not only for erectile dysfunction but also for ‘early diagnosis,’ because you can use ED to predict a heart attack, potentially by years—arterial damage from cardiovascular disease affects the small arteries in the penis first,” says Christopher Steidle, M.D., a clinical associate professor of urology at the Indiana University medical center at Fort Wayne. That’s one reason it’s a mistake to let Levitra, Viagra, and Cialis lull you into an I’ll-fix-it-when-it-breaks mindset.
Here’s another: Take steps to safeguard your sex life now and you may never need to pop the little blue pill. Or any other shade of erection aid. In other words, follow our advice and every woman who visits your peninsula will leave with a smile.
Shut Down the Smokestack
If you still light up, you’ve probably accepted your increased risk of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and bladder cancer. But how about dying young and impotent? A study published in the Journal of Urology found that smoking causes arterial damage that doubles a man’s risk of total erectile dysfunction. The good news: “If men quit in their 50s or earlier, we can usually reverse the damage,” says Andre Guay, M.D., director of the Lahey Clinic for Sexual Function, in Massachusetts.
When Dr. Guay measured nighttime erections in 10 impotent smokers (average age 49), he noted a 40 percent improvement after just 1 smoke-free day. Swap the cancer sticks for fish sticks: Researchers at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland discovered that taurine, an amino acid found in fish, helps heal smoke-damaged arteries.
Eat a Dark-Chocolate Dove Bar
It’s erection medicine. Dark chocolate contains epicatechins, flavonoids that trigger the release of dilating chemicals in the inner, or endothelial, layer of the arteries. How much should you munch? A University of California at San Francisco study shows that those who ate a 1.6-ounce dark-chocolate bar each day increased their blood-vessel dilation by more than 10 percent.
While the study wasn’t done specifically on erectile tissues, anything that benefits your body’s endothelial system will likely benefit your erections, since the penis is made up largely of endothelial surfaces. “Keeping those surfaces healthy is crucial to good arterial flow,” says Kevin McVary, M.D., a professor of urology at Northwestern University. Look for dark chocolate that bears the CocoaPro logo on the label—this symbol is a visible sign that the candy bar you’re buying is chock-full of flavonoids.
Lower Your Estrogen
Calculate your body-mass index. If your BMI comes in close to or over 25, you may be carrying just enough lard to drag down your erections. “We know that heavier men convert testosterone to estrogen, and that a lower level of testosterone and a higher level of estrogen are not good for erectile function,” says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., a Men’s Health advisor and chief of male reproductive medicine and surgery at Baylor college of medicine.
Fortunately, even moderate weight loss can rid you of excess estrogen and put your sex life back on track. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that one-third of clinically obese men—BMI 30 or higher—with erectile dysfunction showed improvement after losing 10 percent of their body weight.