Diabetes gnaws at potency

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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Men with diabetes are more likely to develop erectile dysfunction. A meta-analysis now shows exactly how widespread the lack of stability in bed is among diabetics.

High blood sugar levels are bad for blood vessels - and they can damage nerves. This also applies in particular to the sensitive intimate region. For an erection to be possible, blood must flow into the erectile tissue of the penis. The command to open the locks is triggered via nerve tracts. If these are attacked, the mechanism no longer works properly.

Tripled risk of impotence

Researchers led by Youssef Kouidrat from the Hôpitaux de Paris have examined how common erectile dysfunction is among men with diabetes. To do this, they evaluated data from a total of 145 studies with more than 88,000 participants. These were on average 56 years old. More than one in two diabetics suffered from erectile dysfunction. This meant that their risk of potency problems was three times higher than that of men with a healthy sugar metabolism.

Among the participants, type 2 diabetics (66 percent) were even more affected than type 1 diabetics (38 percent). And this, although type 1 diabetics usually fall ill in their youth and thus have a much longer disease course behind them.

One reason could be that type 2 diabetes, unlike type 1 diabetes, develops insidiously and often goes unnoticed for a long time and is therefore untreated - during this time, blood sugar has the chance of lasting damage to blood vessels and nerves.

Routine potency check

"Doctors should routinely screen men with diabetes for erectile dysfunction," says Damiano Pizzol, co-author of the study. Conversely, potency problems can also be a first indication of diabetes.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, around six million people in Germany have diabetes - in more than one million the disease has not yet been recognized. If the blood sugar is not correctly adjusted, the damage to the blood vessels and nerves increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, kidney dysfunction, blindness and foot amputations.

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