Smoking is bad for fertility - Reason number 1 - Erectile dysfunction

Hi everyone, Dr. Trevor Erikson here. While surfing through the pages of pubmed, a massive online directory for published medical research, I decided to look up the bad effects tobacco smoking can have on our health. 162,622 links appeared on my screen! Many of the reasons are actually connected to poor reproductive outcomes, some of which I decided to write about. This blog is about reason number one - erectile dysfunction.

There was a great advertisement I saw in the UK which showed the link between cigarette smoking and erectile dysfunction. Imagine your two fingers placed on the table, looking like a pair of legs. Now imagine a cigarette placed between them, pointing upwards like an erect part of ones "male anatomy". As the cigarette burns it starts to slowly point downwards... clear enough? Got the image?

Tobacco smoking is associated with erection problems much the same way that smoking is connected to heart disease - both need a good circulatory system, something that tobacco smoking directly damages. Actually, erectile dysfunction itself can be an early sign of heart disease, showing just how closely related the two are. Basically healthy veins and arteries make for a healthy heart and penis - plain and simple!

So please folks, tell your friends, tell your family - smoking makes for bad sex! Poor sexual performance obviously lowers your chance of conception.

If you need ways to relax, try deep breathing, exercise, acupuncture and massage, to name but a few ways that can achieve the same goal.

Dr. Trevor Erikson