Mates condoms Durex pleasuremax Vibrating condom Ribbed condoms - Econdoms

Cigarette smoking significantly increases the risk of erectile dysfunction, according to a study reported at the American Heart Association's 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

Men who smoked more than 20 cigarettes daily had 60 percent higher risk of erectile dysfunction, compared to men who never smoked. The data showed a dose-related impact of smoking: the risk of erectile dysfunction was lower in men who smoked fewer cigarettes, but still increased compared to non-smokers.

The effect of smoking remained significant after considering other factors known to affect erectile function such as age, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, diabetes and body mass index (BMI).

"This is not the first study to document an association between cigarette smoking and erectile dysfunction," says Jiang He, M.D., Ph.D., Steward Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans. "However, our study is very unique because it is able to adjust for important confounders, such as blood pressure, serum cholesterol, and diabetes."

Erectile dysfunction is often associated with atherosclerosis, the build-up of wax-like plaque that obstructs blood flow through vessels. Smoking is a well-recognized risk factor for cardiovascular disease and studies have shown there are strong parallels and shared risks among smoking, coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, and erectile dysfunction, says He.

Researchers examined data on 4,764 Chinese men (average age 47) involved in the InterASIA study, a national cross-sectional health survey conducted during 2000-2001. The survey included questions about respondents' current smoking status and history and quality of sexual relations. All men reported having sexual relations within the past six months.

Survey respondents were defined as current smokers if they were smoking at the time of the survey and had smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime. Former smokers were defined as having smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime but were not smoking at the time of the survey.

The average blood pressure and cholesterol values for the men were within normal ranges, and the average body mass index (BMI, an indicator of weight and body size) indicated the men were not overweight as a group. Of the survey respondents, 62.1 percent were current smokers, and 9.5 percent were former smokers.

Overall, 14.6 percent of the men experienced erectile dysfunction. Current and former smokers had identical rates of 15.1 percent, and the rate among men who had never smoked was 11.5 percent. After statistically accounting for other erectile function influences, researchers found that current smokers had a 31 percent higher risk for dysfunction compared to men who had never smoked. A similar difference was seen in former smokers, who had a 35 percent higher risk. "We did not see a difference between current and former smokers," He says. "However, the number of former smokers is small in this study."

Focusing on current smokers, researchers evaluated the impact of increasingly heavy cigarette smoking on erectile dysfunction. Men who reported smoking fewer than 10 cigarettes a day had a 16 percent higher risk of erectile dysfunction, compared to men who had never smoked. The risk increased to 36 percent in men who reported smoking 11-20 cigarettes daily and was 60 percent higher in men who smoked more than 20 cigarettes (one pack) daily.

The findings build on and strengthen data from other studies suggesting that cigarette smoking is a risk factor for erectile dysfunction.

"These findings provide additional information that smoking has important adverse health effects," says Robert O. Bonow, M.D., president of the American Heart Association. "This gives male smokers another reason to kick the habit, and provides another area of emphasis and education for smoking cessation programs."

American Health Association

Intelihealth.com March 10, 2003

A 24-HOUR PILL for male impotence was introduced throughout Europe yesterday.
Cialis, made by Lilly ICOS, promises to do the same for men as Viagra, but last longer. A single pill is claimed to restore normal erectile function for 24 hours.

Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, has said that Cialis is in breach of its patent. The action remains to be decided in the United States but has failed in Europe, enabling Lilly ICOS (a joint venture between Eli Lilly and ICOS Corporation) to launch the drug.

Cialis’s long-acting effect means that men can take it long before they hope that they will need it, unlike Viagra which has to be taken an hour before sexual activity. Like Viagra, it is not an aphrodisiac and produces an effect only when a man is sexually stimulated, not all the time.

There are an estimated two million men with erectile dysfunction in Britain, about a tenth of whom are being treated. As with Viagra, Cialis will not be available generally on NHS prescription except to men with medical conditions including prostate cancer, spinal injury and diabetes.

In trials, Cialis improved erection in 86 per cent of men with mild erectile dysfunction, 83 per cent of those with moderate dysfunction, and 72 per cent with severe dysfunction.

Some men may be tempted to take it daily to restore normal function all the time but the effects of such a regime have yet to be established.

February 05, 2003, Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor, The Times

The race is on for a cure for female sexual dysfunction. But does the disorder exist, asks Belinda Hickman

MAYBE it's being run off your feet, or struggling to cope with demanding children, or because you are sick, or going through menopause. Your partner may be belligerent or simply less appealing than he once was. Maybe it just hurts too much.

At some stage in their lives, most women will go through a time when the last thing they feel like is sex.

But at what stage does a lack of libido - the loss of sexual desire - go beyond what is normal?

A debate is growing in Australia and overseas about how health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry approach this question. In the wake of Viagra, renewed attention is being focused on the sexual difficulties experienced by men and women and how they might be treated.

A new term, erectile dysfunction, has been coined to describe men's impotence. This is despite the fact that impotence in men is caused by a variety of disorders and only some of these can be treated with Viagra. But having a single label such as erectile dysfunction helps to market impotence products.

Demand for Viagra created a $2.9 billion annual turnover after it was launched in 1998, which could grow considerably if its manufacturer, Pfizer, can get a so-called pink Viagra for women on the market. Other companies are pursuing similar treatments.

To raise awareness, some doctors and pharmaceutical companies are pushing for the adoption of the coolly clinical label "female sexual dysfunction" to describe the problem in women.

As is the case with men, women's sexual difficulties are caused by a variety physical and emotional disorders. Despite the attempt to group them together, there will never be a magic pill that can treat all disorders in the FSD spectrum.

As medical conferences, largely sponsored by drug companies, are held to debate the frequency, symptoms and treatments for FSD, criticism is growing that it is an attempt to invent a new disease, which will be used to create a market and profits for the people who claim to cure it.

An article by Australian journalist Ray Moynihan in the British Medical Journal earlier this month warned that FSD is the clearest example yet of the "corporate-sponsored creation of disease".

He says serious questions also hang over a statistic - from a 1999 University of Chicago study increasingly cited in the media - that 43 per cent of women over the age of 18 experience sexual dysfunction, compared with 31 per cent of men.

The results of a study released this month by the Kinsey Institute in the US suggest that only one-quarter of women are unhappy with their sex lives. This significantly lower figure is because the new study includes emotional wellbeing and relationship issues as predictors of a woman's sexual satisfaction. Past research has focused on physical aspects of sex such as orgasms and arousal.

Many Australian specialists are concerned about the ethics of drug companies being in any way involved in the definition of a disease - save that it means some rare attention is being paid to understanding women's sexuality.

Deakin University research fellow in women's health Angela Taft says shortages in government and private funding mean more researchers are accepting money from pharmaceutical companies.

"If the criticisms are right, the pharmaceutical companies are attempting to influence in a very questionable way the development of research that will do something very much to the detriment of women," says Taft, a vice-president of the Public Health Association. "It could mislead women into feeling very inadequate and diseased ... and it raises a whole lot of questions about how drug companies in general are influencing the direction of medicines for disorders which are questionable."

Many researchers and specialists also largely reject the label "dysfunction" because of the negative connotations of what is a diverse range of physical, psychological and emotional difficulties.

Sydney obstetrician, gynaecologist and sexologist Jules Black is among those deeply suspicious of some - particularly US-based - doctors who, with the encouragement of drug companies, are pushing the FSD diagnosis. "There has been this trend within the last 10 years - starting before Viagra and particularly since it - to medicalise female sexual function," he says. "There can be some genuine problems there. But these entrepreneurial types are trying to make an industry out of it ... I don't know why people aren't more outraged."

Black says the use of FSD is as medically meaningless as other catch-all terms such as mental disorders or arthritis. "If you say a person has a mental illness, what does that mean? They could be depressed, or anxious, or suicidal. It is too general," he says.

Susan Davis, research director at the Jean Hailes Foundation in Melbourne, which specialises

in research and education to promote women's health, also takes exception to the use of the word dysfunction in relation to sexuality.

"A loss of sexual interest is the most common problem. But I don't think it is a health problem," she says. "It is sexual disinclination, not a dysfunction or a disease."

The truth is women may be put off sex for many reasons - which gynaecologists and sexual health workers say should be addressed if the woman or her relationship is suffering.

Hormonal deficiencies, surgery, side-effects from drugs used to treat cancer and some chronic diseases, hysterectomies, bone marrow transplants, radiotherapy damage, menopause, spinal injuries, multiple sclerosis, and muscle spasms or vaginal dryness can all provide physical impediments to a healthy sexual life.

There are emotional or psychological barriers to sex, including anxiety, abuse, non-communicative relationships, fear, depression and stress. Help is available, including counselling and hormone replacement treatments. A better understanding of what is healthy, and learning to negotiate and take control of sex, can assist.

Viagra, too, may have its place - and clinical trials are well under way in Australia and overseas to test the benefits of the drug in small sub-groups of women with specific problems.

But one of the things that angers many about the pursuit of drugs such as Viagra is the way manufacturers are turning to public interest-style campaigns to get around restrictions on the direct advertising of drugs in Australia.

Instead, their advertisements raise awareness of a "condition" and encourage potential patients to ask their doctor about a new treatment.

Pfizer is only too aware of the criticism of its approach to advertising and directing research and medical discussion. Pfizer's media affairs manager Craig Regan defends its use of the campaigns and of the ED and FSD labels: "In terms of patient education we think we are on pretty solid ground. There is substantial evidence that FSD exists. It has been around longer than the male ED treatments.

"Researchers all around the world, long before pharmaceutical companies were looking at this issue, were saying there is a problem. Determining its extent and the scope is exactly what the (sponsored) committees are involved in."

Regardless of the nomenclature and motives involved, specialists warn that difficulties with sex need to be taken seriously. Intimacy is fundamental to a healthy relationship. A loss of interest in sex can create a vicious circle of withdrawal, blame and rejection, and perhaps relationship breakdowns. "It is a major problem. It is very common. But I don't agree that the way to address it is necessarily the same approach that has been used for men,"says Davis.

6 February 2003, Sunday Mail

Once a sexual aberration has arisen, it can quickly and easily become an obsession. The exhibition of the life and times of Madame de Pompadour at the National Gallery has, despite the chaos of the roadworks in Trafalgar Square, been well attended. François Boucher, the leading Rococo painter at the court of Louis XV, didn’t stint himself when painting his sovereign’s mistress. Great expanses of naked flesh explain the usual comment that Boucher’s painting symbolised the spirit of frivolity that was the hallmark of the age. In our modern culture his pictures are no more than mildly erotic, but in different times he might well have been accused of catering for fantasy or even, perhaps, of being near-pornographic. Louis XV tired of Madame de Pompadour’s sexual charms within five years, although he remained a close friend and, to the fury of his courtiers, continued to have a high regard for her political advice.

As with Louis XV, so with pornographers. Research has shown that for most people the erotically stimulating power of pornography has a short half-life. Professor John Money, of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute in Baltimore, claims that it is only four hours. This implies that after only four hours of viewing, pornography will have lost half its power to titillate the average person with standard sexual ambitions and desires. After another four hours only a quarter of its original erotic charge will be left. As time passes, pornography will therefore always generate some slight residual sexual interest, but it will be so small that someone might rather read Madame de Pompadour’s memoirs. This applies to pornography when it is viewed as a solitary activity. However, the vestigial interest may be fanned into life if the atmosphere is right and the libido is roused by the presence of a partner in a randy mood or by the atmosphere at a louche gathering, such as might be expected at a stag or hen party.

There are people who are exceptions to Money’s rule, and it is these who make money for the pornographers. They continue to be sexually stimulated by the pornography because it provides the only erotic charge capable of arousing them. Their fantasies, which are fed by pornography, continue to be exciting because they coincide with the images that their atypical minds find stimulating. The pornographic material, whether it is pictures, the written word or a film, arouses these aberrant desires. As this is their only sexual outlet, short of emulating the actions that are depicted, their interest in pornography remains undimmed.

Operation Ore, which has generated a rash of arrests, has focused public interest on paedophiliac pornography. Paedophilia is a particularly intractable problem — the recidivist rate in paedophilia is higher than for any sexual offence other than exhibitionism. Although the courts inevitably have to consider all cases of paedophilia under one heading, there are considerable differences in the desires and habits of the people who are in this Doctors divide them into those who are exclusively paedophiliac and those who are also, sometimes predominantly, sexually aroused by adults. There are also divisions between those who are attracted by prepubescent children as opposed to young adolescents. The majority of, but not all, paedophiliacs are male, and they may be homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual. Research shows that the average heterosexual paedophile prefers girls of between eight and ten; bisexuals tend to prefer children under eight; and homosexual paedophiles prefer boys aged between ten and 13.

Before joining in the condemnation of the teachers who forbade the filming of primary school Nativity plays I kept quiet because I had been surprised, even shocked — and it takes something to shock an elderly venereologist — when I took my grandchildren to a large theme park. There were a number of what I would assume to be members of the “dirty raincoat brigade” lurking by the slides taking photographs. They were unaccompanied by children, but one carried a child’s coat over his arm. In taking case histories from paedophiles, it is striking that nearly all claim to have been sexually abused as children. Some scepticism is called for in assessing these claims. Many must obviously be true, but when the doctor probes more deeply into such stories it often seems that the actions could have been misconstrued unintentionally, or sometimes even deliberately. However, once the aberrant sexual tendency has arisen it can become an obsession even if it is not acted on, and transferred from fantasy to reality (as in Nabokov’s Lolita).

Just as former alcoholics may continue to be obsessed by the paraphernalia of drinking and collect corks, decanters and bottles, and the inhibited who have controlled their violence still have bookshelves full of accounts of murders, crime and mayhem, so may the potentially paedophiliac collect images of children, and even become an expert on its psychology.

Dr Thomas Stuttaford
The Times, January 16, 2003

Q: Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of advertisements for penis enhancement pills, some claiming to increase size up to 3 inches in less than three months. But before I spend my money on such products, I’d like to know if anything really works or whether they are just a rip-off. As silly as the size issue may be, I want to feel more confident in my love-making abilities.

A: Size matters … size doesn’t matter … size matters … size doesn’t matter. The answer to this question is as elusive as whether she loves me or loves me not.

Yet your question reflects a concern shared by many men. As a matter of fact, it’s the second-most common question that men ask, the first being how to get or keep erections.

Alas, there are no pills, potions or lotions that reliably enlarge penises. At best, these products are a scam and, at worst, interventions with potentially serious side effects.

Even surgeries frequently result in disastrous and irreversible outcomes. For example, one of the most common surgeries used to enlarge penises can produce a 1-inch increase in size by cutting a stabilizing ligament and allowing more of the shaft of the penis to protrude from the abdomen. But detaching the attachments a man was born with often leaves the penis wiggling and waggling in ways Mother Nature never intended.

CONFIDENCE — NOT SIZE — MATTERS
In almost 100 percent of cases, what men seeking penis enlargement solutions — whether from the Internet, the back of a magazine or a doctor — really need is not a bigger penis, but more confidence.

Men are more concerned about penis size than women because, as you say, sexual performance is a matter of confidence. But in terms of actual performance, a larger penis won’t help you any more than cool uniforms help a football team. Some women like them bigger and some women like them smaller. It has to do with the fit and how well you use what you have.
Even if you could get an effective enlargement, some women would still like your penis to be bigger and some women would like it smaller. It is simply a matter of taste because, anatomically, a woman’s most sensitive regions are well within reach of even the smallest penis. The clitoris, labia and outer third of the vagina are the most richly innervated areas, while the inner third of the vagina is less sensitive. So if you have 2 inches, you have enough to do the job.