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How sexual activity is affected in diabetic people?
Diabetes is a medical condition where a person has high levels of sugar/glucose in his/her blood. There are two types of diabetes:
- Type 1 Diabetes – This is seen only in 10% of the people. This is insulin dependent diabetes.
- Type 2 Diabetes – This is seen in rest 90% of the diabetic people. This is insulin resistance diabetes. Major reason is sitting idle or being overweight.
When the body is not able to produce enough insulin or if it is unable to use the produced insulin to convert glucose into energy, the case of diabetes arises.
Diabetes and sexual dysfunction
Due to high sugar levels, the blood vessels and nerves get damaged in the body. Especially the small ones that branch out of the larger ones get severely damaged. As a result the blood doesn’t properly flow into all organs of the body as it normally should. Also due to the damage of nervous system, the stimulation signals are not properly communicated to the brain. This results in Erectile Dysfunction.
Erectile Dysfunction is defined as the inability to maintain or sustain an erection to perform penetrative sex. When a man’s penis has to get erect, lot of blood has to flow into the organ and if the blood vessels are damaged due to diabetes, not enough of blood flow can be seen, further adding to erection problems. Next worst thing that can happen is, erectile dysfunction can cause ‘stress’. Stress in turn adds to the problem.
As per a research conducted by The Boston University Medical Center, 50% of men diagnosed with diabetes had erectile dysfunction problem in a period of 5 to 10 years after diagnosis of diabetes. It has also shown that, if such men had heart related problems, erection problems can become even worse.
What else can cause Erectile Dysfunction in men?
Along with improper sugar levels, there are several other conditions that can result in Erectile Dysfunction.
- Depression, stress and anxiety are psychological factors which can have a profound effect on penile erection or libido.
- Poor diet and sedentary life style
- Being overweight or obese
- If you are regular smoker and/or consume excessive amounts of alcohol
- Blood pressure, pain etc
- Any other medication whose side effects can include erectile dysfunction.
What to do if you are a diabetic and have erectile dysfunction?
If you are believer in natural treatment and would like to fix your problem, the first and only thing that needs to be addressed is ‘reducing the sugar levels’ in the body. How do you control diabetes naturally?
- Exercise regularly, don’t be lazy, take a brisk walk for at least 5 kilometers a day. This will increase insulin sensitivity of the body.
- Maintain healthy body weight.
- Eat small portions more times in a day instead of large portions few times in a day.
- Substitute rice with millets, bajra, brown rice, wild rice or basmati rice.
- Eat more fibrous vegetables and fruits
- Drink lots of water. Water will flush out excess sugar from blood.
- Sleep well on time and get sound sleep in a day.
If you have followed natural ways to cure diabetes and when that doesn’t seem to work, talk to your family doctor. If you want to get Erectile Dysfunction to be treated, you can contact a good sexologist near you.