The vaping side effect that Australians need to know about

Australian men are urged to give up their vapes after research found a link between smoking e-cigarettes and erectile dysfunction.

Vaping has exploded in popularity in recent years, particularly among young Australians, as it doesn’t carry the same stigma or price tag as cigarettes: a Chinese-made vape costs as little as $20 compared to a pack of cigarettes at $50.

With brightly colored packaging and fun flavors like grape and pineapple, it’s easy to see how they’ve caught the eye of young people.

Vaporizers were previously marketed as a safer alternative to cigarettes, but evidence in recent years suggests that electronic devices cause similar damage to the body.

Experts warn that vaping can damage users’ DNA, cause a host of respiratory problems, promote tumors, increase the risk of lung cancer and heart disease, and is even linked to erectile dysfunction.

Australian men are warned to ditch their vapes after early research finds a link between vaping and erectile dysfunction.

One study, published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in November 2021, analyzed data on e-cigarette use in approximately 13,000 men ages 18 and older.

It found that healthy men aged 20 to 65 who vaped were more than twice as likely to report experiencing erectile dysfunction than men who did not vape.

“ELDS (electronic nicotine delivery systems) were associated with erectile dysfunction ‘regardless of age, cardiovascular disease and other risk factors,’ the study wrote.

Australia’s leading urologist, Dr Chris Love, told Daily Mail Australia the study results were “concerning”.

Dr. Love, who is a medical adviser for the online men’s health platform Mosh, said that while the study was a few years old, it is vital to educate doctors and the public about the long-term impacts of vaping on sexual health. Men’s.

“It’s worth bringing people’s attention again because many vapes contain nicotine and that’s the cause of the problem,” said Dr. Love.

There are many things that young men do early in life that can affect them, and lifestyle factors are important in the development of conditions later on.

“Vaping fits into that group of things that we think you shouldn’t do if you want to stay healthy in the future.”

Dr Love explained that nicotine was already known to have an impact on sexual performance and said that vaping was exposing men to the problem on a much larger scale.

“Erectile dysfunction is a very common condition in men, particularly more common as men age,” said Dr. Love.

“However, I believe that all urologists and all specialists who work in this area see younger men with erectile dysfunction.

“Erectile dysfunction is a vascular condition, just like heart disease, so if something is bad for your heart, it’s also bad for your erections,” said Dr. Love.

“That’s why smoking cigarettes is bad for erections. Vaporizers have that, let alone the other chemicals we don’t know about yet.

“There could be many reasons, but we are seeing younger men and vaping is certainly not helping the situation.”

Dr. Love, who has more than 35 years of experience as a urologist, warned young men against vaping, as it can cause narrowing of blood vessels, which cannot be reversed.

“The reason men get erectile dysfunction from cigarettes and probably from vaping is nicotine because it causes small arteries to close up,” said Dr. Love.

‘Over time, that turns into permanent narrowing of the arteries, and that’s why the arteries to the heart narrow and why you get heart disease if you smoke. The same thing happens in the arteries of the penis, but it often happens earlier in life.

“At the moment, we don’t have any technology to open those arteries if they were to close. That’s why we’d like men not to damage their arteries to begin with.

The erectile dysfunction specialist said that the treatment consists of taking Viagra and, if nothing else works, penile implant surgery.

Dr Love said prevention was better than cure and suggested that quit smoking campaigns should include warnings about the possible side effects of bedroom smoking.

He stated that an effective slogan to discourage men from smoking a cigarette or an electronic device would be “if you smoke, your penis won’t work”.

“If a man can’t get an erection, we can fix that by putting in an implant, but in the general scheme of things, you’re trying to prevent those problems from happening, and that’s the whole potential problem with vaping,” said Dr. Love. .

“Instead of having pictures of dead toes and everything else on cigarette packs like they do, they should have ‘if you smoke your penis won’t work’ on the side of the pack.”

“I think that will make a lot of young people quit smoking. If they pick up a pack of cigarettes and you have someone whose toes have fallen off, they’ll say “oh, that’s an old man.”

Dr. Love said more research is needed into the links between erectile dysfunction and vaping, but he thinks the effects of vaping will turn out to be just as bad for erections as smoking cigarettes.

“With the increasing cases of vaping, the increasing number of vapes that have nicotine, and with that worrying study in the background, I think clinicians dealing with this area would predict that we’re going to see erectile dysfunction develop,” he said. .

We have known for years that smoking cigarettes is not good for your health. It may be that vaping is just as bad for erections.’

Experts warn that vaping can be particularly harmful to young people because it damages DNA, promotes tumors and can cause a host of respiratory problems.

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the medical term for when someone can’t get a satisfactory erection or can’t maintain an erection, and it can happen for many reasons.

Age, diabetes, performance anxiety, certain medications, surgical procedures, and lifestyle choices can cause erectile dysfunction.

While it’s more common among older men, most often caused by poor blood flow to the penis due to narrowing of the arteries, more people under the age of 40 are seeking ED treatment than ever before.