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Erectile dysfunction is often called male impotence and is described by problems with achieving and keeping up an erection that is not enough for penetrative sex on a regular basis.

However, the term “male impotence” can also be used to describe other sexual problems a man can experience such as loss of libido, premature ejaculation and inability to experience orgasm. Still, in most cases this expression refers to erectile dysfunction as it’s the most common men’s health problem all over the world.

There are different degrees of erectile dysfunction ranging from total inability to get an erection in the first place to transient loss of hardness after getting a good solid erection. These are the extremes but in most cases people have problems that fit in between these two.

Erectile dysfunction can be caused by a wide range of factors including health problems, side effects of medications used, stress, anxiety, relationship problems, psychological issues and others. And depending on the actual cause of the condition the patient will choose a corresponding treatment method to achieve the best results.

The most important thing men have to know about erectile dysfunction that it’s treatable regardless of age and degree of severity. There are different treatment options that can apply but if you consult with a good physician you will certainly find the right treatment option for your situation. more…

There’s one sad and inescapable fact. As we age, sexual performance starts to fail. It’s one of the real frustrations of life. You remember how it used to feel and then feel embarrassed by the current state of play. Once we get into our sixties, up to a quarter are at risk of developing erectile dysfunction. We could all just sit back, quietly confident the weekend pill will see us through to seventy, infinity and beyond. But it would be so much better if we could get through life without having to depend on pills. Ignoring the cost – should it really be costing us that much to get laid? – there are a a host of health reasons for acting on the following list of tips. Living longer, more healthy lives is good for us all.

1. Lose weight There’s clear evidence linking obesity with erectile dysfunction. It starts with all that cholesterol in your diet which lays down a deposit in your arteries. When your arteries start to harden, the first to feel the effects is the one leading into your penis. Then, when your looks disappear under that excessive weight, you find it harder to get anyone into bed with you.

2. Eat a healthy diet Following on from the first, the less healthy the diet, the greater the risk of diabetes which can damage the nerve endings you rely on to form an erection, and heart disease is just a little farther down the line. Keeping a “normal” blood pressure allows your arteries to expand and contract as they should. If you like evidence, there’s a small mountain of it showing men eating a Mediterranean style diet of fruit, vegetables, fish, lean meat and whole grains have better heath and a great sex life.

3. Cut down on the amount of alcohol Heavy drinking can seriously affect your liver function and cause nerve damage. Put both together and you have a classic cause of erectile dysfunction.

4. Quit smoking Quite apart from the fact most women don’t want to smell your breath, nicotine increases the risk of heart disease by hardening the arteries, and undermines your health with the risk of cancers.

5. Exercise Sex is a potentially strenuous activity. If you have poor muscle tone and your stamina is weak, you will find sex an effort. But if you increase your general activity level, it improves your mood and gives your body the strength needed to engage in sex. But, of course, if you are older, you should not suddenly start exercising. Take advice from a doctor that it will be safe for you and ask a physical trainer for a program to build you up without risking a stroke or heart attack. more…

One of the tactics most often used by the folk who promote vegetarianism is to show us video of animals being killed for their meat. To make their point, they usually pick images showing the animals in pain. This is most obvious because they are usually thrashing around, making loud noises and trying desperately to escape their death. Often these pictures are disturbing. We don’t like to be reminded of the necessary cruelty to keep us supplied with food. Then, of course, the farmers come back into the debate with the line these pictures are the exception not the rule. They aim to make us feel better by confirming most animals are killed quickly, efficiently and without undue pain. No one likes to be in pain.

Now we come to the definitions. Pain is an unpleasant sensation. When we feel it, we immediately react by trying to avoid the cause. This has been one of the most successful of the survival characteristics that has enabled humans to climb to the top of the food chain. The system for transmitting the messages is effectively instantaneous. Take as an example the speed of reaction if we find a hand too close to fire. In that fraction of a second we feel the heat rising, we are already moving the hand away. This is pretty amazing. Not only is it fast, but it’s also very precise, telling your brain exactly where the potential or actual problem is and triggering movement before you are conscious of it. If this was all it did, we would be as happy as clams (although why clams should be so happy has always been a mystery). But the sad fact of life is that pain is rather more than a warning system. The unpleasant sensations continue even though we might have done everything in our power to treat the problem. There’s no convenient way of shutting it off other than by using a drug.

Needless to say, the world has been in search of a reliable painkiller from the dawn of time. Once we realized the pain was a problem in its own right, we were trying every possible plant and root to find the best way of making it go away. And this was a remarkable success. We found a wide range of different powders and potions that would make even the most severe injuries seem trivial. Reducing the dosage to avoid death (many are poisonous), the remaining problem has always been the addictive nature of most powerful drugs. Put simply, if you are in serious pain, getting welcome relief from a drug tends to make you dependent on it. more…

Two years ago in Washington, the US Court of Appeals decided the major cigarette manufacturing companies were guilty of fraud. This needs a word of explanation. Fraud is one of the hardest things to prove. There has to be clear evidence the accused actually knew what they were doing was wrong. This is not something you guess at. But when the courts looked at the ads trading on slogans like “mild”, “light” or “low tar” suggesting these cigarettes were safer than ordinary cigarettes, there was no doubt. The makers knew all cigarettes were equally dangerous and were deliberately lying to the public. Worse, there were backroom conspiracies not to compare different brands and to lie about the risks of passive smoking. There were major dollar penalties imposed. This would be a great result if it had also resulted in orders banning the sale of this dangerous drug. But no matter how clear the medical evidence of the risks of lung and heart diseases and the probable cancers, the US remains a country in which everyone is free to do what they want, even if they kill themselves in the process. more…

Carrying through the stress of everyday tasks it’s no big surprise that pain has become our constant companion. And with the constant need in pain relief options many advocate the use of so-called natural pain relief methods that are said to be free of negative effects of conventional medications. It is said that some natural pain management methods are so effective that they provide effective pain relief that is comparable to that of typical painkiller medications but without the harmful effects on the body these medications are known for.

So the next time you suffer from any kind of pain in your body, try avoiding typical pain relief methods and give a chance to any of the natural ones. Here is a list of the most common natural methods you can get pain relief with:

Natural painkillers – apart from typical oral medications such as Ultram your local pharmacy will certainly offer you an abundance of natural supplements that provide pain relief effects. Of course, not all supplements can be compared to Ultram or other typical painkiller drugs in terms of effectiveness. However, if you experience mild to moderate pain it would be better to choose a natural option rather than provide a strong impact to your body with usual painkiller medications. Ask the pharmacist about the most effective supplements you can use.

Hydrotherapy – this is considered as one of the oldest methods of pain relief known to man. As the name suggests, it uses water to provide the required pain relief effect. You will need warm water with minerals, oils or sea salt for the necessary effect. It is recommended to take a warm bath with the aforementioned additives for about 15 minutes and you will certainly experience improvements in your aches. This method is particularly effective for chronic pain conditions.

Get the right sleep – lacking the necessary amount of sleep makes your body vulnerable and weakens the ability to withstand pain and regenerate damaged tissues. During sleep, the body renews damaged cells and produces natural painkiller substances in the brain. So it is very important to get 6-9 hours of sleep daily in order to minimize the risk of experiencing pain on a regular basis.

Focus on positive things – pain is a product of our brain and being positive in your thoughts significantly reduces stress and pain as well. When you keep a negative mindset your body produces less painkiller substances and you are at a higher risk of experiencing trauma. So, no matter how silly it may sound, keeping the focus on positive things will help you cope with pain effectively if you experience it. more…

It’s been interesting to watch the emergence and then control of feminism. When women first started asking for things like the vote, men slowly gave in but then made sure the changes had little effect – no female candidates to vote for. This manipulation of reality came under real pressure as the 1960’s gave way to the 1970’s and a new militancy was born. It seemed as though male privilege might actually crack. Well, we need not have worried. It may have taken a few more years than we expected, but the genie is now back in the bottle. Despite laws protecting women from discrimination, they are rarely used. Men continue to dominate in almost every area of activity and, remarkably, the majority of women have stopped publicly complaining. Well, perhaps there are odd moments when some speak out. You only have to think of Larry Summers and his remarks about the failure of women to excel in math, to see the possibility of change. But that possibility is swept away when you look at the recent midterm elections where more vitriol against candidates in general, and women candidates in particular, has been sprayed around without anyone thinking this odd. Think of witches and Halloween costumes to get the point. It seems everything is fair during elections.

When it comes to medicine, however, there are real differences that have a direct effect on the planning of our healthcare services. We are not just talking about the obvious need for separate maternity wards. The statistics of care form the basis of federal government policy-making. It takes years to train doctors and bring them up to a reasonable level of competence. Buying the land and getting zoning clearance for building hospitals and clinics is also a long-term task. Funding must be put in place, and pressure to get the projects through local and state procedures must be maintained. Think about it. There are more births than deaths every year. As people grow old, they use hospital services more often. Where are all the healthcare services going to come from over the next decades? more…

The US box office is currently under assault from Saw 3D – presumably the last in the series. There’s something vaguely disturbing about the idea of not only being able to watch people perform surgery on themselves, but also to see them do it in 3D with body parts flying out of the screen at you. In this, there’s a big irony because Saw is getting all the headlines while, lurking away in the art houses, you also have 127 Hours which is a true story. You can watch a mountain climber who, when he got trapped in an isolated canyon, cut off his arm to escape.

We tell you this, not to promote self-treatment, but to introduce the idea of acupuncture. Here specialists take a set of long needles and then drive them into your skin. Unfortunately, those of you who like horror movies will be disappointed at the outcome. Instead of rivers of blood erupting from gaping wounds like the oil from a gusher, nothing appears to happen. The victims lie calmly watching the needles go in, all the while chatting about the latest fashions or the current World Series with the expert. It’s all very disappointing except, if you talk to any of the millions of people in China or South East Asia where acupuncture is a routine part of medicine, they all report excellent results from the treatment.

Indeed, in China, acupuncture is used alongside conventional anesthetic. Patients going through surgery remain conscious and discuss the finer points of the surgeon’s technique with the theater nurses. To those of us in the West, this is taking things too far. The very idea of it really does seem like the plot from a horror movie. So we are not asking you to believe in anything so extreme. Rather we come down a few notches in ambition and report the latest results of a clinical trial in Seattle. A team of dedicated scientists gathered a group of 650 people, all of whom had serious lower back pain with loss of mobility. They were divided into four groups. One received genuine acupuncture from an expert. The second was pricked by toothpicks in all the right places. The third was pricked with needles at random (faintly disconcerting). While the final group was given conventional physical therapy. more…

If you are one of the millions of Americans that suffer from migraine headaches, then you know all too well how debilitating they can be on your quality of life. Migraine headaches are a very common problem, but because they affect every person differently, they can be very difficult to treat. Furthermore, not all migraine treatments on the market work the same for every patient, and they are expensive to boot. With the health care crisis in America what it is today, who has hundreds of dollars every month to try new medication that has no guarantee? Not many people do, which is why many Americans are looking for new ways of living with migraines and treating them effectively.

A migraine headache is classified as a migraine when it occurs on one side of your head and is accompanied by other symptoms such as light or sound sensitivity, nausea, and sometimes even vomiting. It is often described as a throbbing sensation and can debilitate someone enough that they are unable to work, drive, or even function. Most of the time when a migraine attack comes on, the individual is forced to retreat to a quiet and dark room until the migraine attack is over. For some people, this can last days. Migraines are a severe interference with life, and one of the most commonly cited reasons for missed work.

For those that suffer from migraines regularly, a series of triggers is often identified that sets off these migraine attacks. The unfortunate thing is that what is a trigger for one person may not be for another, so keeping track of what you are doing and eating around the time of a migraine attack will help you towards managing them better.

These triggers can be food triggers such as chocolate, food items with red food coloring, red wine, and many other triggers. Some people even find weather changes to be a trigger for migraines, and will suffer attacks when the barometric pressure changes from one extreme to another quickly. In a lot of cases, people know what their triggers are, but there is nothing they can do to avoid them, such as thunderstorms or humidity hikes.

When it comes to cases like that, knowing what will be your best comfort zones, alongside having adequate migraine treatment, will go a long way towards helping you manage your migraines. Knowing your triggers will be enough to help you avoid the ones you can avoid, and prepare for the ones you can’t. Sometimes having enough medication on hand when you know a storm is coming is all the preparation you can do to manage your migraines when unforeseen triggers crop up. more…

For centuries, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been using acupuncture to treat a wide range of different diseases and disorders. Put most simply, millions of people accept treatment based on sticking needles into their bodies. This sounds a strange thing to do. Western doctors have been consistently skeptical yet, when you actually look at the theory behind it, there is a remarkable similarity in approach. TCM relies on mapping the human body to identify the critical points for manipulation. These points are essentially the same as the major groupings of nerves recognized as significant in the West. Pain-blocking injections are made into TCM acupuncture points. With reluctance, Western researchers are looking more closely for evidence whether acupuncture is effective. Reluctance because the major drug manufacturers discourage research that might put them out of business. Recently, a clinical trial in Seattle was written up in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Some 650 people suffering back pain were divided into four groups. One received genuine acupuncture, the second a modified version of acupuncture pricking the skin in the right places with wooden toothpicks. The third group were pricked with needles at random. The fourth received conventional physical therapy.

All the participants were given ten sessions over a seven-week period. There were follow-up interview spread over the next year to establish whether there was any lasting effect from any of the treatments. Interestingly, 60% of those receiving the different versions of acupuncture were still reporting benefits at the end of the year. Only 40% of those receiving physical therapy reported any continuing improvement. At one level, this would suggest there is a strong placebo effect from the use of acupuncture, i.e. those who receive the treatment believe it will be effective and so it proves to be. In scientific terms, there’s nothing wrong with this outcome. When 60% of participants report a better quality of life twelve months after the treatment ended, this is strong evidence of the effectiveness of the treatment. Physical therapy is also based on social contact with one human selling the effectiveness to another yet this got a smaller placebo effect. more…