It’s important to note this study only found a link between impotence and type 2 diabetes. It didn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the health issues.
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The report was published in the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.
For the study, Skeldon’s team collected data on more than 4,500 men 20 and older who took part in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2001 to 2004.
The researchers looked at the association of erectile dysfunction with undiagnosed high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes in that group.
The investigators didn’t find any link between having trouble achieving or keeping an erection and undiagnosed high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
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But they found that the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes was 11.5 percent in men with impotence compared to about 3 percent among men without the disorder. In men aged 40 to 59, the rate of undiagnosed diabetes was 19 percent in men with erectile dysfunction compared to 3 percent in those who didn’t have erectile troubles, the study found.