Impotence can signal heart risks

Men with erectile dysfunction are more likely than other men to experience chest pain, a heart attack or a stroke during the next seven years, a new study of men 55 and older has found. The research adds to evidence that impotence can be a warning sign of heart disease.

The findings suggest that men who see their doctors for impotence drugs also should consider getting screened for heart disease, said study co-author Dr. Ian Thompson of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

“There are many men who die suddenly of a heart attack, never having seen a physician and never having their cardiovascular risk assessed,” Thompson said. “Some of these men may never have had a symptom of cardiovascular disease.”

Researchers already understood that heart disease and erection problems shared risk factors, including obesity, smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and physical inactivity.

But the study is the first to look at a large group of healthy men and monitor them over time, Thompson said. Researchers used data on 8,063 men without pre-existing heart conditions who participated in a study on prostate cancer prevention.

The researchers found erectile dysfunction to be almost as good a predictor of cardiovascular disease as a family history of heart attack.

The study is in the Dec. 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn.