Viagara and your love life. Are pain killers killing more than your pain?

I saw this article in Dynamic Chiropractic and thought it was great. Check it out here.

Drugging Your Sex Life

By Donald M. Petersen Jr., BS, HCD(hc), FICC(h), Publisher

Most people are completely ignorant of the impact their health philosophy has on their health; that is, until some aspect of their health reaches a crisis level. And even then, most still don’t figure it out. Two recent research papers demonstrate this fact in bold letters, serving as a classic example of how opposing health philosophies ultimate impact patients.

We have been led to believe thataspirin, sold worldwide for over a century, is a relatively safe drug for all types of pain. More than 50 years ago, we were told that ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, etc.) was just as safe and even more effective. Almost 20 years ago, naproxen (Aleve) was approved as an over-the-counter drug with many of the same promises. In 2001, these nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) accounted for 70 million prescriptions and 30 billion OTC doses in the U.S. alone. That’s more than 100 doses per person for that year.

In 1998, Viagra became the hottest-selling new drug on the market with more than $1 billion in sales in its first year. As we all know, Viagra, along with several other drugs, is prescribed for the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED). Current sales of ED drugs tops $5 billion per year for the three drug companies that make them.

The fact that Viagra does so well suggests that the ED problem is substantial. Current estimates suggest approximately 18 million men suffer from ED. Fortunately, the passage of time brings many truths to light. Two studies published last year did just that.

The first study was published in April 2011 in the Journal of Urology.¹ From a study population of 80,000-plus men, the authors concluded that “regular nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use is associated with erectile dysfunction beyond what would be expected due to age and comorbidity.” This conclusion was based upon results that “the unadjusted OR (odds ratio) for the association of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and erectile dysfunction was 2.40.”

That means a man who takes NSAIDs regularly is almost two and a half times more likely to also suffer from ED. Even when adjusting for all sorts of factors, the odds ratio was still 1.38.

In November, 2011, a paper in the British Journal of Urology International found that “the number of medications a man takes is associated with worse ED, even after comorbidities have been taken into account.”² The percentage of men reporting ED increased from 15.9 percent for those taking two or less drugs to over 30 percent for those taking 10 or more drugs. Not only did more drugs increase the likelihood of ED, but they also increased the severity of the condition.