Can Vitamin D Give You a Boost in the Bedroom?

Those with severe erectile dysfunction (ED) had significantly lower vitamin D levels than those with mild ED.

Experts recommended routine measurement of vitamin D in those with erectile dysfunction.

Just when it seems the benefits-of-vitamin-D literature has topped out, Italian researchers have found yet another area where the vitamin/hormone may help out: the bedroom.

In a study of 143 men, Alessandra Barassi, MD, of University of Milan in Italy, and her colleagues found that those with severe erectile dysfunction (ED) had significantly lower vitamin D levels than those with mild ED, and that deficiency was worse in those with arteriogenic ED than in non-arteriogenic ED.

When they used penile echo-color-Doppler to assess vascular quality, the arteriogenic form of the disease was more common in men with vitamin D deficiency than in those who had levels of at least 20 ng/dL.

Reporting in theJournal of Sexual Medicine, Barassi and colleagues wrote that low levels of vitamin D "might increase the ED risk by promoting endothelial dysfunction" and that since low levels of vitamin D are common in all ED patients -- not just those with arteriogenic disease -- it "may be involved in the mechanism that promotes endothelial dysfunction causing ED."

They recommended routine measurement of vitamin D in ED patients, "with replacement therapy as required."