An excessive amount of screen time is literally making men soft: Chinese scientists found that playing computer games for a protracted period can drastically increase someone’s likelihood of experiencing erectile dysfunction, per a study published within the journal “Andrology.”
“The current study offered substantial evidence for a positive causal association between computer use and the chance of erectile dysfunction,” wrote the study authors.
Scientists arrived at this tough truth by exploring “the causal association between leisure sedentary behavior and erectile dysfunction,” per the study.
To gauge if there was a link, researchers observed 223,805 men aged 40 to 69 as they engaged in various leisure activities, including watching TV, computer use and even driving for pleasure.
They then measured participants’ levels of testosterone and other sex hormones in addition to feelings of depression and anxiety.
Scientists found for each additional 1.2 hours of leisure time on the pc — of which kind they didn’t specify — the participants greater than tripled their likelihood of experiencing ED.
Interestingly, scientists didn’t “obtain any evidence” to suggest that watching television or leisure driving didn’t have the identical effect, suggesting that being sedentary wasn’t the issue in and of itself.
How do these pixelated pursuits torpedo one’s “hard” drive?
Prolonged computer use is related to lower levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which is manufactured by the brain’s pituitary gland. Together with testosterone, FSH is accountable for stimulating sperm production in men, which, when impinged, may end up in ED.
By the same token, low levels of FSH have also been found to cause decreased libido, infertility and low energy. Fortunately, this digitally-induced impotence may be counteracted by “moderate physical activity,” per the study.
No must exchange your laptop for an elliptical just yet, nevertheless: The study had several caveats, most notably the incontrovertible fact that they only evaluated men under 70, the age at which ED is most prevalent.
The intensity of the symptoms was also unclear.
“Due to this fact, it could only be concluded that the longer the time spent using a pc, the more likely ED was to occur, but the chance of developing a selected style of ED or how severe ED could be couldn’t be determined,” the authors wrote.
Researchers determined that more research is required before they will establish a “definitive causal association” between computer use and impotence.
The study also neglected to specify what style of leisurely computer use upped the probabilities of ED, which currently affects around 30 million men within the US.
Nevertheless, previous studies have found that online porn can paradoxically spoil young men’s love lives by giving them unrealistic sex-pectations.
“Porn addiction can result in desensitization to sexual stimuli, which may decrease arousal and result in difficulties achieving and maintaining an erection,” explained clinical sexologist and psychotherapist Dr. Rob Weiss. “If my primary source of arousal is always 50 images a day or 1,000 images a day, I not change into that interested on a person basis.”