No Magic Pill Will Provide All Erectile Dysfunction Treatment

Medications are not quite a magic pill to improve the sex lives of men with erectile dysfunction problems, a Deakin University study has found.
Hayley Matic conducted the study for her Doctor of Psychology (Health) with Deakin's School of Psychology under the supervision of Professor Marita McCabe. She found that while oral medications, known as PDE5 inhibitors, may restore a man's 'sexual function' they don't necessarily restore a man's 'sexual health'.
"As well as the obvious physiological aspects, men with erectile dysfunction (ED) suffer a range of problems such as significantly poorer self esteem, sense of masculinity, sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction," Dr Matic said.
"This study found that overall well being was not improved in the men who had used medical interventions for their erectile dysfunction."
Dr Matic's study explored the psychological and relationship impact of� � erectile dysfunction on the lives of Australian men and their partners. It also looked at men's help-seeking behaviour and experiences with oral medication as treatments for their ED. It involved 410 men with� � erectile dysfunction and 242 men without ED.
"Erectile dysfunction affects up to 50 per cent of men at some point in their lives and is generally treated with the use of oral medications," Dr Matic said.
"The focus on the medical and biological elements of� � erectile dysfunction has led to a relative dismissal of the role of psychological and relationship aspects of men's sexual experiences. As a result many men stop using the medications and continue to suffer ED as well as the associated problems with their masculinity, self-esteem and quality of life.
"Hopefully the results of this study will open up current mainstream treatments for this sexual dysfunction to include greater awareness of the psychological and relationship factors inherent in a man's sexual health."

Gene Therapy Reverses Erectile Dysfunction

Erectile Dysfunction Treatment

Rats with erectile dysfunction, or ED, that were injected with a gene therapy vector containing either of two nerve growth factors were able to regain normal function after four weeks, according to a study conducted by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. These findings are being presented at the 10th annual meeting of the American Society of Gene Therapy, which is convening May 30 to June 3 at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, Seattle.
Erectile Dysfunction is the repeated inability to achieve or maintain an erection necessary for sexual intercourse. Because of the variability of symptoms, estimates of the incidence of� � erectile dysfunction vary but range from 15 million to 30 million affected men in the United States.� � Erectile dysfunction is frequently associated with damage to the cavernous nerve that results from surgery for prostate cancer. Even if a patient receives a nerve-sparing procedure during surgery, recovery from ED after radical prostatectomy may take a long time.
In this study, which was led by Joseph C. Glorioso, III, Ph.D., chair of the department of biochemistry and molecular genetics, and Joel Nelson, M.D., chair of the department of urology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, researchers inserted either the gene for the glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) or the GDNF family ligand (neurturin) into a genetically engineered herpes simplex virus (HSV). They then injected either of the recombinant viruses into the damaged cavernous nerve of rats. GDNF is an important nerve growth promoter and has been shown in other studies to contribute to survival and regeneration of penile nerves. Neurturin also is a nerve growth factor closely related to GDNF. Control mice received only the virus without the GDNF or neurterin genes inserted.
Four weeks after the treatment, rats administered HSV-GDNF exhibited significant recovery of intracavernous pressure (ICP) and systemic arterial pressure (AP) compared with rats treated with the control virus or untreated mice with erectile dysfunction. Rats treated with HSV-neurturin also exhibited significant recovery of ICP and AP compared with the control or untreated mice at four weeks after treatment. Fluorescent protein studies also showed that the delivered genes had been effectively incorporated into the target nerve cells.
According to Dr. Glorioso, HSV delivery of GDNF or neurturin presents a potentially important new approach for the treatment of ED. "Because the herpes virus persists in the nerve cell for as long as it is alive and nerve cells typically do not reproduce, this represents the first-ever demonstration of a long-term treatment for� � erectile dysfunction that does not rely on the chronic administration of drugs that can have potentially harmful side effects," he explained.

Treatment of Men with Erectile Dysfunction Improves Women's Sexual Function and Satisfaction

Treatment for Erectile Dysfunction

Couples Share Sexual Problems and Solutions
Couples share wine, movies, vacations and bedrooms.� � Do couples also share sexual problems and solutions?� � In the November issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, researchers have published the first-ever prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-institutional treatment study with multi-dimensional psychometrically valid outcomes and concluded that an effective erectile dysfunction treatment in men also significantly improved sexual function and sexual satisfaction in untreated women partners.� � The research concluded that women partners' sexual function improvements related significantly and consistently to treatment-related improvements in men's erectile function.� � Furthermore, erectile dysfunction management should acknowledge that both members of the couple may be affected by erectile dysfunction and its treatment.
The research, in an article entitled: "Women's Sexual Function Improves When Partners Are Administered Vardenafil for Erectile Dysfunction: A Prospective, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial," published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, involved 229 men with erectile dysfunction and their women partners for more than 6 months.� � The women completed baseline sexual function questionnaires including the Female Sexual Function Index, which has 19 questions concerning 6 domains: desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain.� � Other outcome scales used included the Sexual Life Quality Questionnaire.
The couples were divided into two groups, those couples in which the men with erectile dysfunction received a safe and effective PDE5 inhibitor (vardenafil, Levitra) and those in which the men received placebo. There was no difference between the untreated women's sexual function scores in the two groups at baseline.� � After 12 weeks and approximately 20 intercourse experiences, the untreated women who were with men assigned to placebo were observed to have their sexual function scores fall in all domains.� � The untreated women who were with men assigned to effective erectile dysfunction treatment recorded significantly increased sexual function scores in all domains.� � The greatest increases in sexual function were noted in orgasm and satisfaction domains.
In this landmark research, the physiological changes in sexual function of one member of the couple (the untreated woman) were found to be significantly linked to the physiological changes in sexual function of the other member of the couple (the treated man with erectile dysfunction).� � There are limited studies in medical literature where a physiological function of one individual not receiving treatment is improved when another individual receives treatment to improve a physiological function.
Dr. William Fisher, co-author of the study and Professor of Psychology, and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, noted that "Erectile dysfunction has never been only about a man, a pill, and a penis. It is often the case that a partner's sexual function suffers when a man experiences erectile dysfunction, and this research documents this fact and the welcome improvement of sexual function among women whose partners received effective treatment for their sexual problem."
"The most fascinating aspect of this study," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, lead author of the research, "is that the women in the study were untreated and we observed that their physiology changed.� � Think of this for one minute.� � These are the first ever data that show physiologic changes in lubrication, orgasm and arousal in an individual who was NOT TREATED."