For men, smoking can lead to erectile dysfunction and impotence. Men who smoke have up to 50 percent greater risk of impotence than their non-smoking colleagues. You might know that nicotine constricts blood vessels, increases blood pressure and can cause blood vessels to become clogged. This has a deteriorating effect on the quality of the blood vessels throughout the body, including in the penis.
When the blood vessels remain in good condition, with sexual arousal the vessels in the penis with fill themselves with blood and a man gets an erection. If the arteries become clogged, this means that the a less rigid erection or no erection at all can been reached!
Smoking increases the risk of erectile dysfunction by around 50% for men in their 30s and 40s.Diabetes, high cholesterol levels and drugs used to treat high blood pressure are also important risk factors. During an erection, large quantities of blood flow into the penile arteries. This causes the veins which drain the penis to become compressed, so preventing the immediate outflow of blood. Significantly this process is impaired by smoking.
- Less blood flows into the penis if the inflow route is blocked by long term build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries (atherosclerosis) caused, in part, by smoking.
- Rapid Contractions in penile tissue, a direct an immediate result of nicotine stimulation in the brain, restrict arterial blood flow into the penis. This is known as acute vasospasm.
- The valve mechanism that traps blood in the penis is impaired as a result of nicotine in the bloodstream. This is known as venous Dilation.
The damage that smoking causes is cumulative. Years of smoking makes makes it more difficult to get or keep an erection. Teens who do not get rid of smoking, can become impotent when they are thirty or forty years old. The damage caused by smoking to male sexual health also includes:
- Reduced volume of ejaculate
- Lowered sperm count
- Abnormal sperm shape
- Impaired sperm motility
For men, smoking can lead to erectile dysfunction and impotence.
