Sexual Dysfunction in Men

Mark Hyman, MD

Full Transcript

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Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
People's sex lives are not over at age, you know, 50, 60, or 70. There are men that come to me wanting to have prescriptions for Viagra at age 70. And I always tell them, I'm not giving it to you unless I get a get a written note from your wife.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's not gonna go well. Before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone via my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at this scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand, well, you. If you're looking for data about your biology, check out function health for real time lab insights. If you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, check out my membership community, Hyman Hive.

And if you're looking for curated and trusted supplements and health products for your routine, visit my website, supplement store, for a summary of my favorite and tested products. Hi. I'm doctor Mark Hyman, a practicing physician and proponent of systems medicine, a framework to help you understand the why or the root cause of your symptoms. Welcome to The Doctor's Farmacy. Every week, I bring on interesting guests to discuss the latest topics in the field of functional medicine and do a deep dive on how these topics pertain to your health.

In today's episode, I have some interesting discussions with other experts in the field. So let's just jump right in. An estimated 30,000,000 American men are affected by ED. Now people don't like to talk about this, and it's uncomfortable to talk about sex. It's kind of a taboo, but you have to talk about it because it's a significant issue that impacts so many aspects of people's lives.

Now your physical health and sexual health are, are totally connected. Obesity, for example, is independently linked to erectile dysfunction. People have what we call a dad bod. You know, it's becoming normalized among young men where you kind of kind of become a little pudgy around the middle. It's not normal.

People with a high body mass index or who are overweight tend to have lower testosterone. I'm gonna explain why that is and how you can reverse that. Also, your emotional health and well-being are tied to your sexual function. People are stressed, you know, have more trouble with sex. Quality of relationships and intimacy also plays a big role, and it's so common.

We're going to talk about how common this problem is. In the Massachusetts male aging study, Ed was the most common sexual health problem. In 1995, it affected about 150,000,000 men worldwide, and that's projected to reach 300,000,000 next year. The prevalence, in other words, the number of people in the population, men, obviously, who have this is not 52% of men between ages of 40 to 70. That's a lot of guys.

And what does it mean? Well, erectile dysfunction or Ed means the inability to have or maintain an erection. Now as you get older, it's more common. 40% of men are affected at age 40. 70% of men are affected at age 70.

A recent study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that one out of every 4 men under the age of 40 is affected by ed. Now that's shocking. You're talking about guys under 40, and that's about 25% of men under 40. There's also a strong relationship between testosterone and particularly testosterone deficiency and erectile dysfunction and was shocking. And I see this in my practice and it kind of blows me away, honestly.

Young guys have very low testosterone. I mean, what you'd see sometimes I see in a 90 year old, I see in a 20 or 30 year old, in about 30% of men aged 40 to 79, according to the American Journal of Medicine article, experience low testosterone. Now researchers show an increased prevalence is associated with aging. That's common, but it's also associated with other diseases that are causing the erectile dysfunction. It's not just the penis that's the problem.

It's the rest of your biology in your body that's not operating properly. So obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, are all clues that something's awry with your hormones, your metabolic health, and likely soon with your sexual health. In fact, there's a phenomenon that's called andropause or male menopause, which is sort of a gradual decline in testosterone after the age of 30, about 1 to 1 a half percent drop in testosterone a year. Now that doesn't mean it's a normal or it has to be. I mean, I have a guy who's, like, 60 2, who's got a testosterone of, like, 900, which is what you see in a healthy young 20 year old or 18 year old rearing to go all the time.

And promise you, he's rearing to go all the time. It doesn't mean it's normal. Right. It means it's common. It doesn't mean it's normal.

Normal is just means the average in a population. So it's quote normal, but it's not optimal. And so you have to understand how you want to get to optimal ranges by addressing the root causes of the problem. And there are a lot of ways you can naturally increase testosterone. Now there's a strong relationship between low testosterone and erectile dysfunction.

And and the reason is that, you know, low testosterone is a clue for other problems. It's a clue that you have poor metabolic health, and it's so common. And I've talked about this so many times on podcast, but 93% of Americans have poor metabolic health, and that is what leads to erectile dysfunction. I'm a explain exactly how we're getting into the science. And and by the way, all the references, everything I'm saying is in the show notes.

You can go dive deep, and you can click through, read the articles yourself. But it's, it's a sort of scary picture in America now with increasing obesity, diabetes, and, and poor metabolic health. But this leads to what we call endothelial dysfunction. Now what the heck is that? Your endothelium is a lining of your blood vessels, and the health of your blood vessels determines your sexual health and your cardiovascular health and your cognitive health and pretty much everything.

In fact, that's one of the problems with COVID and with long COVID, which we've talked about, is this massive damage to the lining of our blood vessels. And that is what happens with COVID that drives so many of the pathologies. Now, men who have low testosterone are 38% more likely to die of a cardiovascular ten. That's like a heart attack or stroke. Now the question is why?

Why do we see low testosterone? Well, it has to do with what we call insulin resistance. Now I've talked about this for almost, god, scary now to say 30 years. It is something I've paid a lot of attention to. I've written many books on this.

Insulin resistance is the scourge of the modern world. Like TB was everywhere before and it wasn't even as prevalent as insulin resistance. We're talking about 93% of Americans having some poor metabolic function and that some degree of insulin resistance, somewhere on the spectrum from optimal metabolic health, blood sugar regulation, insulin sensitivity to a slow decline in insulin sensitivity, more insulin resistance, prediabetes, type 2 diabetes. It's all a spectrum. And this leads to low libido or low sexual desire, low desire for sex, for masturbation.

It's influenced by low testosterone. And basically, I'll give you the punch line here. But as your belly grows bigger, your testosterone gets lower. Big belly, low testosterone. Why do you have a big belly?

Because you deposit fat or VAT, visceral adipose tissue. And this visceral adipose tissue is a a excuse me. My French here, a storm of of hormonal and inflammatory chaos. Essentially, it causes, an increase in what we call adipocytokines, and we'll talk about why inflammation plays a big role in messing up hormones, particularly testosterone. And it also, causes an increase in estrogen, for men, lower testosterone, and that leads to sexual dysfunction.

So it's a big issue. And so the slow sex does sexual desire, low, sexual function is influenced by low testosterone, but can be influenced by other things like stress, anxiety, and many other chronic diseases. Now, 2019 study of more than 12,045 year old men found that about 1 in 20 reported low sexual desire, which is a lot. When you think about 45 year old guys, they should be still wearing a go. Now some desire for sex drops naturally with age, but but it doesn't go away even in your sixties, seventies, or eighties.

I mean, Mick Jagger had a kid at 75. Picasso had a kid. This was in the pre Viagra era at 80 years old. So, it's not impossible to keep going for a long time. Now what's the problem with our conventional approach to dealing with erectile dysfunction?

It's not just as simple as giving people Viagra or Salus. It's really about taking a deep dive into the why what's the cause now. Often your hormones are not tested. It's amazing how many people go to the doctor and never get their hormones tested. Don't get testosterone, free testosterone, estrogen, FSH, LH, all the important biomarkers that are critical to understand what's going on with your hormonal health.

Also, doctors don't test for insulin resistance. I was recently on a conference call with, some of the top scientists and doctors at Quest Laboratories Diagnostics, which is, you know, one of the biggest testing laboratories in the country, probably the biggest. And I said, how many how many doctors are testing for insulin, fasting insulin? And they're like, well, that's pretty low. Maybe 1% of our lab tests are for fasting insulin that are ordered by doctors.

Now this should be a standard test that everybody gets as part of their annual checkup. It is the most important test to determine your longevity, your risk of heart attacks, cancer, stroke, dementia. It's so critical. The other test that they almost never look at is what we call lipoprotein fractionation. I've talked about this on other podcasts.

We'll link to those, in terms of how to look at your lipids. But the cholesterol test that doctors do now is really so outdated. It's like, you know, looking at things, you know, with a with a, you know, like a I mean, listen to your heart with a stethoscope instead of looking at it with a echocardiogram or an MRI. You know, it's just it's kind of old fashioned, and it's it doesn't it gives you some indication of what's happening, but it's really not the gold standard. And I asked again, I asked these, experts in cardiovascular diagnostics at Quest.

I said, well, what percent of tests out there are for the the lipoprotein fractionation, which means the quality of the cholesterol, the particle number, the particle size, which gives you a much better indication of your insulin resistance and your risk factors. And and I said, what percent of your tests are for this, you know, 21st century cholesterol panel? And they're like, 1% or less than 1%. And so that means 99% of people are not getting the right cholesterol test, which prevents them from really understand what's going on with their metabolic health. Now these tests, hormone tests, insulin, lipoprotein fractionation, a one c, many, many other things.

We do test at Function Health. Now I'm a cofounder of Function Health. I'm the chief medical officer, and I believe that people should have access to their data, and it's very empowering to know what's going on. We found all sorts of things. We've we've had over 25,000 members to date at the recording of this podcast.

We've had over 3,000,000 biomarkers tested, and you can get over a 110 biomarkers for less than $500. And you get testing twice a year, and you can track what's going on. You can see changes based on your interventions, lifestyle, diet, supplements, and then actually be empowered with the right information and knowledge and education about what to do about these numbers. Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The the other thing is most doctors don't really deal with lifestyle.

You know, weight, diet, exercise, sleep, it's considered soft medicine. But the truth is it is the most important thing in determining your risk factor in your health. Now what do they do if, you come in complaining of erectile dysfunction? Well, they give you the little blue pill. You know, that was a blockbuster.

That was an accident. That that pill was actually designed to treat high blood pressure, but it had a side effect that a lot of the the people in this study noticed, and they liked the side effect. And so, the the the the drug company got very smart, and they're like, well, this is a lousy blood pressure bill, but it's a great bill for erectile dysfunction. And, you know, before that, it was it was tough for guys. You know, they were vacuum pumps or, you know, you could have a penile implant that was sometimes revascularization.

You can do a transurethral kind of thing called muse. We used to recommend, like, pretty scary. You put a little pellet in the end of your penis. It's painful. There's injections, which you can use that work, but they're painful.

But when we ever hit the scene in 1998, within 6 months of approval, there were over 5,300,000 prescriptions written. And then the prescriptions have just tripled in the last decade. So, there are a lot of other drugs, Cialis, Levitra, Tendra. They work for different reasons in different people, different ways, but, they're they're not bad to use. In fact, they can be helpful.

They may be protective against Alzheimer's, I read recently. So, they increase blood flow. They increase circulation. They increase nitric oxide. We're gonna talk about all that.

And those are not bad things. But, you know, more and more people are actually using this. Even younger people are getting it, for off label use. They they secretly take it. They're embarrassed.

They have performance anxiety. Maybe they have a erectile dysfunction when they're younger. But let's talk about how these drugs work and how, what is the physiology of actually having an erection? When, you have, sexual arousal, it causes the release of nitric oxide, which is a good thing in those cells that we call that, line your blood vessels called the endothelial cells, and they're in your penis. And so basically, you get increased blood flow because it it helps to activate something called guanylate cyclase, an enzyme.

You don't remember it. Promise no test on this. And that leads to an increase in something called cGMP. Now that particular thing causes the relaxation of smooth muscle cells or it causes your your muscles to relax and that lead leads to the the dilation of the blood vessels in your penis, and that increases blood flow, and that leads to an erection. And then it gets trapped inside the penis in the corpus cavernosum, which then, you know, maintain the erection and have fun.

Now after you ejaculate, there's an enzyme called PDE 5 or phosphodiesterase type 5, and that degrades the cGMP. So that thing that keeps your erection going. Now that causes the smooth muscles to contract again and that reduces blood flow to the penis and that ends erection. Now how Viagra works, sildenafil and Cialis, tadal, how they work is they inhibit this PDE 5. They inhibit 5 phosphodiesterase, which is this enzyme that degrades cGMP.

Now, in that that prolongs the effect of this particular compound, cGMP, keeps the blood vessels constricted in your penis, and it helps maintain the erection for longer, which is fun and great. And it's no problem. But, you know, side effects are common about, over a 1 in a 100 people. You get mild headaches, dizziness, flushing, congestion, and sinus can I mean, basically, having sex, you're congested, runny nose, and have a headache? Well, it's not so much fun always.

It can cause backaches, muscle pain. Some of that can cause low blood pressure because it was designed for a blood pressure pill. It can rarely cause a painful erection to last a long time, like over 4 hours, and that's called priapism. And that can damage your penis, and it can cause all the heart issues. Rarely, it can cause vision or hearing loss, but that's very rare.

Now if you're taking drugs like, nitrate drugs, if you have angina, you have heart disease, if you have liver issues, you don't wanna take them. So they're not bad, but, let's talk about maybe getting to the root cause, which is exactly what functional medicine's about. It's not about treating the symptoms. It's about the cause. So how do we get to the root cause?

We have to really understand the full picture. And so we have to look at diagnostics, and I think it's really important to do a proper testing so you understand what's happening with your biology. And that's really why we've created Function Health, why I'm the cofounder and chief medical officer, because all the tests that I'm gonna mention right now are all available at functionhealth.com, and you can sign up. You can, just get in there and get your test done and, right there's a wait list, but we can get you off the wait list if you use the, the code doctor Hyman. Now, the first thing you wanna know is something called sex hormone binding globulin or SHBG.

Now this is important because it regulates the amount of free hormone, free testosterone. It's a protein made by the liver. It binds to testosterone and estrogen, and it basically makes them inactive. So it's sort of like a reservoir of extra hormones when you need them. Also albumin can bind to estrogen and testosterone, but not as well.

And that's something that's normally in your blood. Now when you have insulin resistance, high insulin, the liver suppresses the sex hormone binding a lot, and that leads to potentially more free testosterone. And that can kinda screw up normal hormone balance. And we often see an increase in prostate cancer and the large prostates in guys who have insulin resistance and big bellies. And that's a concern.

Inflammation, on the other hand, can also increase sex hormone binding glaugrids. So why does that matter? If there's inflammation, you get higher binding glaugrids. It means you get less free testosterone. And that's what matters.

That's what does the job. And so when you have less free testosterone from any source of inflammation, you can end up in trouble. So sometimes guys, even within some resistance, tend to have the high sex hormone binding globulin because, of the belly fat, which is basically a factory of inflammatory molecules. Now what does testosterone do? Well, it increases your sex drive or libido.

It is involved in the production of red blood cells, which can certainly be an issue if you're after taking testosterone. It is involved in sperm production, mood, so makes you happy. Or if you take too much, you can make you angry. Motivation. So it's very important for motivation in men and women.

By the way, women have a lot of testosterone too. It's really critical to build lean muscle mass, which we'll talk about why that's important for sexual function. It helps energy or cognition, recovery from, you know, exercise or injury, and it improves insulin sensitivity. So it's good. Now free testosterone is the active kind.

It's not bound to the sex hormone binding. It's the active form of testosterone and it's not less than 2% of the total amount. Now the optimal range and these are all going to be in the show notes. You have to memorize them now, but you can check it out in the show notes. The optimal range is over 30 picograms per deciliter.

Now you wanna look also at the total and the free. So you wanna look at both. Now if you look at the total testosterone, the ranges are kinda screwy because, you know, how we develop reference ranges in America is based on the average or, quote, normal in a population. So if you're a Martian, you land in America, it's, quote, normal to be overweight because 75% are overweight. It doesn't mean it's optimal.

So the the ranges that we see are not the really optimal levels, but you see ranges 200 or 300 nanograms per deciliter. But the range should really be over 500, and, and you have to look at the combination free and total, but it can be up to a1000 or more. And and I think it's it's important to sort of look at what the symptoms are, what the person's overall health is and look at the free in total, and you get a sense of how much is going on there. Now, even if your total can be normal, you can still have issues of low testosterone because your sex hormone binding globulin is high. In other words, there's not enough free testosterone.

So I see that very often in my patients. Also the other hormone that guys have, which you probably may not know, is estrogen or particularly estradiol. Now men and women don't have estrogen, and, and it has a lot of important functions. It does affect the libido. It affects erectile dysfunction, sperm production.

It's also important for bone health or brain function and also for nitric oxide production. You don't want it too high or too low. And often guys who have big bellies have basically something called aromatase in their fat, which turns testosterone into estrogen. You don't want that. You don't want testosterone turning into estrogen.

It's not nice. The other hormone you wanna look at is the pituitary hormones, and the hypothalamic hormones. Your pituitary hormones are really important. We call LH and FSH, luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. Now it's kind of a weird thing because follicle stimulating hormone, sounds like it's for women's follicles that produce eggs, but it's also active in men.

So in men, the way this works is your hypothalamus, which is kind of way in the top of your brain, it's kind of the master control center, creates a hormone called gonadotropin releasing hormones. So gonadotropin essentially are, the hormones that make, gonadal hormones. So it's like stimulates the pituitary to produce the gonadal, gonadotropic hormones, which are hormones that stimulate the testicles or the ovaries, which may be the case in women, to produce more hormones. So LH, our luteinizing hormone, which, again, it's kind of a weird name because it basically lutein luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. It's it's named after women's hormones, but it really affects men too.

So, LH, affects cells in the in the testicles called the leydig cells. Now these cells produce testosterone, so higher LH will increase testosterone. FSH, affects different cells in in in the, testicles called the sertoli cells, and may lead to sperm production. So LH, testosterone, FSH, sperm. Really important.

And it's important to assess fertility, what's going on with somebody. It's really important. You may not know what's going on, and you might have low testosterone, but you could have a pituitary tumor for some reason. So you gotta check all these things. Also, we look at prolactin.

Another hormone we check with function health, again, not usually checked. Prolactin is another pituitary hormone that is involved in many things, including lactation. That's why I call it prolactin. But it it can be high in certain, benign tumors that grow in the pituitary, which are not that uncommon. And the treatment usually is surgery.

Sometimes there's drugs that can treat it. We also need to look at inflammation, and we look at something called hscrp or high sensitivity c reactive protein. Inflammation is such an important factor in our overall health and aging and longevity. High inflammation is a root cause of sexual dysfunction, whatever's causing it. Now many things can cause it, including our diet.

That's the number one cause, really. Sugar, starch, processed foods, all that's driving inflammation, our gut microbiome, environmental chemicals, heavy metals, toxins. You know, there's also endocrine disrupting hormones, which are really concerning to me. And I I I see a change in the population in the birth rates of men and women. We see changes in fertility.

We're gonna talk about that on on another podcast. And and I think a lot of it has to do with with these forever chemicals, that are petrochemicals that are in the environment that don't go away. We used to have dioxin and PCBs and DDT. They're still around. And now we have other plastics, and other pesticides and herbicides.

These are highly dangerous and and they're toxic at very small levels. So, oh, you're like, ah, I'm so out. I'm not getting that much, this or that. But, but you are. Cumulatively, you are over your lifetime, and then they've done fat biopsies in people, and they found that pretty much every human is a toxic waste hub.

And we probably wouldn't be safe to eat if we were food. Other hormones are important as well. Leptin, again, something we check on function health that mostly doctors don't check, but leptin is the appetite suppressing hormone. But sometimes when you have insulin resistance, you also get leptin resistance. So you see high levels of leptin, and that leads to low testosterone and suppressed, LH.

So that's concerning. In one study in the journal of clinical endocrinology, they looked at 3 groups of men, and they phone found that those with higher leptin levels, mostly due to leptin resistance, had a higher body mass index, so they were heavier, and they had lower levels of testosterone. So it it's an important thing to check. Adiponectin, another important hormone. It's an anti diabetic hormone.

It's an anti inflammatory hormone. It prevents, heart disease, and it's often low in, in some resistance and inflammation, obesity. So you want to check out adiponectin again. And we check that as part of our panel with function health. Again, it's not usually checked, but it's important because if it's high, it's good.

And if it's low, it's bad. We also check your fasting insulin, and Hemingled Money A1c because, you know, insulin resistance is really, I would say the majority of the causes of of erectile dysfunction as we get older. And it leads to, like I said, low testosterone, higher belly fat, more estrogen, abnormal cholesterol, more inflammation, low sex drive. It's just not a good thing. And your insulin, you really want between 25.

Now most reference ranges are 15 again because the average American is unhealthy and overweight, so the reference range is wrong, basically, is what I'm saying. So in functionality, we talk about what are the current reference ranges and what are the optimum ranges. Also, you wanna look at stress hormones like cortisol and DHEA, and you also look look at, cardiovascular testing. And not just a regular cholesterol panel as I mentioned, but looking at what we call lipoprotein fractionation. This really looks at cardiovascular risk, insulin resistance, Really important.

And I think if you don't look at the right cholesterol panel, you're basically just, living in the 20th century and not the 21st century in terms of cardiovascular health. A thyroid also really important, and we have to look at thyroid properly, not just the way doctors do it on their traditional panel over the TSH. You have to look at the TSH, the free t three, free t four, even thyroid antibodies, which we all check on function health. And and they're really important because thyroid, function, if it's low, will cause a low libido, low sex drive, a low low mood, and it may be as simple as taking thyroid and also will influence, sex hormone binding allotment. Now none of these tests are hard to get or expensive, but, unfortunately, your doctor is probably not doing most of them or doing them properly.

So that's why, again, I cofounded Function Health, and I encourage you to check out, your own test so you can see what's going on and be empowered with your own health data and be the CEO of your own health.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
People's sex lives are not over at age, you know, 50, 60, or 70. There are men that come to me wanting to have prescriptions for Viagra at age 70. And I always tell them I'm not giving it to you unless I get a I get a written note from your wife.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's not gonna go well. Actually, yesterday, I was doing a consult with a patient who's 87 years old

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Who's still having sex with his wife.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
I plan on it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. I'm going at least to a 100.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
I don't know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're getting better

Dr. George Papanicolaou
as time goes on. So, why stop?

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's exactly right. So, this is a very common problem. From a traditional medicine point of view, there really wasn't much of an approach to this beforehand. We had some really course and crude treatments. Talk about what the traditional approach to erectile dysfunction has been other than the Viagra, Salus and Levitra category of drugs, which now are pretty widely prescribed and do work and help people.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Yeah. So, you know, prior to Viagra, there were some fairly primitive approaches to it, like vacuum pumps and revascularization because vascularization, you know, vascular issues, endothelial dysfunction is is a key part of what causes, erectile dysfunction.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So So in English, you're basically saying that you get hardening of the arteries Yeah. In your penis, which makes it not so hard.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Right. And so but that hardening of the arteries not only reduces blood flow, but there's this endothelial dysfunction. And it's in the endothelial cells that nitrous oxide has its effect.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So what are what are endothelial cells?

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Endothelial cells are the cells that are are are lining the blood vessels of the that that are inside the penis.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So throughout your entire body, you've got these lining of all your blood vessels. Right. And it's it's a very active lining. It does all kinds of things including regulate the dilation and the blood flow and loss of other things, inflammation. And nitric oxide is a key regulator of that.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Very key.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And that's what goes wrong. And what are the reasons why men tend to get this decreased blood flow in the penis that leads to these erectile dysfunction.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
There's there's multiple reasons. But before we go on to that, I think probably is a good idea just and let me just review quickly. Because we're gonna talk about nitrous oxide. We're gonna talk about why Viagra works and other drugs like it. Essentially, what happens is that you have the release of nitrous oxide.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Nitric oxide.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Nitrous oxide.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Nitrous oxide is laughing gas.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
I'm just gonna call it n o. Okay. N o. So you you release the n o. And then n o has its act its action on the endothelial cells inside the blood vessels of the penis.

It also acts on the corpus cavernosum muscles. And so you get the simultaneous relaxation of those muscles so blood can flow in. Those are the big muscles of the penis. So that when they're full of blood they main they they they, actually start the erection and maintain the erection. And then you have the small blood vessels.

Nitrous oxide acts on those at the same time and causes those to constrict. So the blood that flows into the cavernous muscles then stays there as these small veins constrict. And that basically starts the erection and maintains the erection. Mhmm. And what happens is you and that's called tuminescence.

Then you have detuminescence when the the after the ejaculation, the penis relaxes. And that's when 5 Phosphodiesterase breaks down the compound that was responsible for causing that relaxation and constriction. And when that compound breaks down, the small blood vessels relax and the penis relaxes and becomes flaccid. It's 5 it's the 5 phosphodiesterase that gets inhibited by Viagra. Yes.

Right? So this is just a little lesson to everybody listening. That's how it works. Viagra blocks the 5, 5 phosphodiesterase, allows this

Dr. Mark Hyman
So basically it increases blood flow and makes the erection stay

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Longer. And longer. Because you don't get the breakdown of this thing called cyclic GMP. So that doesn't break down. That maintains the the constriction of the small blood vessels.

You can maintain actually obtain an erection and sustain an erection for a longer period of time.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's a good thing you have to remember all those chemical names when you're having sex because that would not go very far.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
No. So But the but that's what's going on. And so so then what can affect what are the things that affect that? So metabolic syndrome. So when you're when you're thinking about people with, ED, see, all the blue pill does is fix that end problem.

Right? It fixes that. Let's just make sure we get the erection and we maintain it. But there's reasons why we get there. We get there because of stress and its impact on that neuro that very, very sensitive neurovascular problem.

That neurovascular it's not a problem. That neurovascular symphony that has to occur for you to have, you know, your erection and ejaculation. So metabolic syndrome That's prediabetes. Which is prediabetes, which includes, you know, to make that diagnosis you have to have obesity, dyslipidemia, which is just abnormal. Cholesterol.

Cholesterol, triglycerides, HDLs.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You have

Dr. George Papanicolaou
to have hypertension. And one of the things is insulin resistance. And so insulin resistance is connected to endothelial dysfunction. When these endothelial cells aren't working, then the the No, the nitrous oxide, is not gonna have an impact. And you're not gonna be able to start that erection.

So what do you treat? You can give the person Viagra, but since metabolic syndrome has so many other impacts on their overall health and their their health span and lifespan, it'd be better to fix that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right. Okay. So let me let me translate that because that was that was really good. I think I think here's what's going on. Basically, people eating lots of sugar and starch and crap in their diet get prediabetes, which goes along with high triglycerides, low HDL, high blood pressure, belly fat, the whole the whole thing.

Exactly. And when you have this problem, which by the way, affects every other American, And if you take out the kids, it's probably more than half the adults. Right? So we've got 75% overweight, 88% monoblocally unhealthy. In this country, most of those people have some degree of insulin resistance.

And what you're saying is when you have this phenomenon going on in your body, it damages the ability of the lining of your arteries to function properly so you can't get blood flow in your organs, not just in your penis, but in your heart, and in your brain, which is why insulin resistance causes heart attacks and strokes and also dementia. So this is all connected. And in fact, the first sign of heart disease is probably having trouble getting an erection.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
You're worried about your erection, but you know what? You better be worried about your heart and your brain because they're the ones that are really the target of what's going on.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Absolutely. And I think people don't realize that. It's not just a local problem. This is a systemic problem. And so That's one of

Dr. George Papanicolaou
the points I really hoped we'd make today because, you know, as important as erections are, it's getting those root causes that impact your overall health. And then the cherry on top of the pie is great erections.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And I think I think most people don't realize that that, no, our our whole system is connected. And that's what's so different about functional medicine is that it's looking at the whole system. So, you know, most people don't think of your diet when you think about having sexual dysfunction, but that's the first thing we think about. Right?

We do think about stress for sure that plays a role. But

Dr. George Papanicolaou
There's alcohol. There's alcohol. Mhmm. You know, and and it was one of the roles that alcohol plays is that when you're when you're drinking alcohol, that itself is going to impact that endothelial function during the time of your use. And you're going to maybe that night not have an erection.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Here's here's what happens. You can stop drinking and say, okay. That will fix it. But there's something that happened. You had You have you're gonna have a psychogenic response.

It's called performance anxiety. And once you once for some men, once they have a failure, it multiplies itself. They get performance anxiety and it becomes a psychogenic problem. And there's vast majority of men who have erectile dysfunction actually have a performance anxiety or psychogenic cause.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So basically, just if it doesn't work once, you're gonna be afraid it doesn't work every time and that's gonna make the whole thing worse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's a hard mental thing to fix.

But the the fascinating thing to me is that the the phenomena around seeing this as a systemic metabolic vascular issue is so is so important. And there's a lot of ways to address it that, you know, we're gonna get into. And of course, there's a lot of ways to also address erectile dysfunction that are up and coming that are quite new, just far beyond Viagra, which we we're gonna talk about. I'm excited to talk about those things. But but even in traditional medicine, you've got the vacuum pump, which is pre Viagra where you put a little ring around the base of your penis, and you basically put a tube around your penis, and you basically vacuum it all the blood in.

Oh, that's Which is doesn't sound like fun to me. And there's penile implants which can work. There's alprostodil which is an injection or something that goes inside the urethra of the penis that can help, that's a prostaglandin. And there's revascularization which is something I would love you

Dr. George Papanicolaou
to talk a little bit about. So revascularization is essentially you're having, as we talked about, hardening of the arteries. And it's there's 2 ways that can be done. Just like you have angioplasty stents placed in the heart, the same thing can be done for the penis. And that's that's one possibility.

It's

Dr. Mark Hyman
So it's basically like angioplasty for your penis? Yeah. Wow. That's incredible. And and, Now yeah.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Again, these are these are very interesting very interesting responses to the problem. But I would and and we're gonna go through other possibilities. As you said, we're gonna talk about stem cells and platelet rich plasma. I always like to go back to the idea that, yeah, you can be revascularized, but why get there in the 1st place?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Exactly. Right.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
You get you know?

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's like you get a stent, but you gotta fix your

Dr. George Papanicolaou
All of these things actually work. I mean, I I've had patients of mine use a vacuum pump. I don't know how they do it. It works, doc. I love it.

I've had people get penile implants. It works, doc. I love it. And they're pressing their testicle and they're getting their erection. And, you know, that's how that's how the pump works.

You know, they had the pump is inside one one testicle and you start pressing on it and it gives you your erection and it works. I've had men use the injections. They feel like 18 years old again. But they all have diabetes, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and I can't get them to get to that underlying cause. So almost sometimes when I not let them get their erection.

Right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, let's talk about let's talk about testosterone because there's this whole conversation out there about male menopause or andropause this whole syndrome of low t or low testosterone. And I think part of it's gone to the extreme and there's a lot of bodybuilders who use testosterone and I think can be used inappropriately. But but what I want you to talk about is why do we see the drop in testosterone as men age? Because I think this is really important. There are natural ways to raise testosterone.

There are ways that we are living that lower testosterone. So let's get into talking about that. Because if you fix testosterone, a lot of things

Dr. George Papanicolaou
get better. A lot of things do get better. Erections may or may not get better. Testosterone can definitely have an impact on erectile dysfunction. It impacts the 5 phosphodiesterase we talked about earlier, and it also can have an impact on nitric oxide.

And that can result in improved directions. And you asked me why do we see this drop off in testosterone? Well, there's this natural drop off of testosterone as men age. So after the age of 30, you're losing about 1% per year. And over time, that's gonna drop you pretty low.

But that's not gonna do it all by itself.

Dr. Mark Hyman
No. I see many older guys with raging, high testosterone levels.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Here's the older guys that don't have raging testosterone. Those are the guys that have sleep apnea, alcohol over they drink too much alcohol. They have diabetes. They haven't learned how to manage their stress. Did I mention sleep apnea?

Dr. Mark Hyman
You did.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Yeah. I did. But that's a very important one. And so those are things that as you age begin to impact your body's ability to make testosterone.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So I just wanna emphasize something you said there. It's so important. You said diabetes. But this whole pre diabetes insulin resistance thing is the biggest reason.

So here's the deal. The bigger your belly, the lower your testosterone. And the smaller your The the more belly fat you have, the lower your testosterone is. And and people don't understand that. And then you mentioned alcohol.

And the reason alcohol is such a problem is that it increases a hormone a hormone converter called aromatase, which is an enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen, which is why you see guys who are drinking lots of beer and alcohol have man boobs and have big bellies and lose the hair on their chest and lose the hair on their legs so they become more like women and they have very high estrogen levels. So people are shocked to find that out. So you basically become like a woman the more alcohol you drink. Absolutely. And I think those two things are really important for guys to understand because if you are struggling with erectile dysfunction, it's a big deal for people And they don't understand that it's directly related to what they're eating.

Now in addition to the fact that eating starch and sugar will lower your testosterone, what are the things that actually might increase it from a dietary point of view?

Dr. George Papanicolaou
Mark, it goes back to one of the books you read you wrote called Eat Fat, Get Thin. So now I'm gonna tell you this. The name of the book can now be the one that I'll write will be Eat Fat, Get Hard.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, gosh. This is getting to be a racy podcast. We gotta put explicit warnings on this one. You know what?

Dr. George Papanicolaou
They should have known getting us together. This is gonna happen. So, yes, fat. Because fat actually, you know, we've talked about this before, has cholesterol on it. Cholesterol is not a bad guy.

Cholesterol is really important foundational molecule for building hormones, and one of them is testosterone.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's right.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
So eating good healthy fat is going to allow you to have that precursor molecule to maintain high levels of testosterone as long as you're doing everything else right. Sleeping well, managing stress, and limiting your alcohol use.

Dr. Mark Hyman
The next topic I wanna get into is, people's, often challenging subject for people to talk about, which is sexual dysfunction. And it's a pretty big problem across the board for men and women, and it's something people really don't talk about that much. We had a little blue pill, Viagra, everybody was happy, but there's more to it than that. And I wanna talk about some of the approaches you have. But first, can you share some of the the scope of this problem and who it affects and and and what kinds of things you are doing to help people solve this issue?

Because, you know, I have this patient who's, like, 75, and I mean, all she does is is, talk about sex and her all her partners. And it's like so people can stay sexually active for a long time. I have 80 year old patients who are, like, I wanna keep being engaged. And I think we often say, oh, I'm 50. I'm over it.

You know, I had met another guy who was, 58. He's, like, I'm done. You know, like, I I I I'm, like, wait a minute. You're done. It's, like, you don't have to be done.

And so I think what what are what are you finding in terms of the scope of the problem, and what are the kinds of things that are really, working? Scope of

Dr. George Shapiro
the problem is significant, and it just is not in the older population. We're seeing problems, age 30. Mhmm. Age 30, 40, 50, men and women. Mhmm.

80% of, erections in men is vasculogenic. It's due to blood flow. 20% is hormones. So a lot of the a lot of the younger patients come in and say, listen, my my testosterone must be low because I can't get an erection. But that's not the case.

It's it's other things that are involved. Vessels, blood vessel flow. Blood flow is a big problem. Now, why do people have lack of blood flow? Yeah.

It turns out that, you know, atherosclerosis starts at age 5. You can start having plaque

Dr. Mark Hyman
in blood vessels. Hardest arteries.

Dr. George Shapiro
Yeah. And the first sign of of erectile dysfunction is endothelial dysfunction. The endothelium is the inside lining of blood vessels. We have 60,000 miles of blood vessels

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh my.

Dr. George Shapiro
In our body.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And how many miles in your penis?

Dr. George Shapiro
Well, so it turns out that it's one organ, not multiple organs, the endothelial system. So people often ask, you know, as a cardiologist, why are you dealing with erectile dysfunction? Because the first sign of endothelial dysfunction is erectile dysfunction. The first presentation that someone has a blockage in an artery is lack of early morning erections or erectile dysfunction.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. George Shapiro
So when we see that

Dr. Mark Hyman
heart disease, diabetes, right?

Dr. George Shapiro
Absolutely. Diabetes is a big thing. Hypertension is a big problem. Alcohol is a huge problem. When you have alcohol, you have an acute inflammatory reaction in the blood vessel wall.

But the most the most that we see is sugar. Sugar? Sugar is extremely inflammatory. If you have a Coca Cola with So

Dr. Mark Hyman
basically the donut or a Coke or an erection, you gotta choose. Right?

Dr. George Shapiro
Within 2 hours. Right. Within 2 hours of having sugar, we can actually measure in the urine an inflammatory mediator. We can actually measure your blood vessel by looking at endothelial function testing to see that it's vasoconstricted after sugar. Sugar could could precipitate a heart attack.

There was a it was a good video.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Don't have dessert if you wanna have sex. Is that the idea?

Dr. George Shapiro
You gotta pick your you gotta pick what you want. So sugar's a sugar's a big problem. But what we're finding out is blood flow is huge. And and like you said, to see the diseases or or, you know, what we're eating and that that can affect us a lot.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And I want people to really get that. What doctor Shapiro just said is that sugar is one of the biggest causes of sexual dysfunction.

Dr. George Shapiro
It well, sugar is the biggest cause of inflammation inside the blood vessel lining, which is a big Factor. A reducer, of blood flow. It's all about blood flow. So what are some of the things that we can do to increase blood flow? A technology that I recently started using about a year ago is called GAINSWave.

GAINSWave uses low intensity, extracorporeal shockwave therapy, and it basically can optimize men's health. It can optimize performance. What it does, it creates a small injury. Injury then, sends a message to the brain. The brain releases mediators, mesenchymal stem cells, to go to that site and increase blood flow by causing what's called angiogenesis.

So actually, the GAINSWave treatment, which has been very popular lately, and it's available all over the US, we do it in New York City and my Westchester location, but it's involved everywhere, but it's for 2 things. It basically helps increase blood flow. And it does that by angiogenesis.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Angiogenesis means growing new blood vessels.

Dr. George Shapiro
Correct. So anytime you have an injury, your your body is trying to repair that injury. And and our natural repair mechanism is stem cells. So you have a cut on your finger or shave. You're shaving and you get and you have a cut.

What happens in 2 days? It's it's healed. Yeah. Why does it heal so fast? We have a self repairing mechanism.

So this low intensity shockwave therapy, GAINSWave, basically gives you this small injury. And we're all familiar with shockwave therapy for lithotripsy. Right? Lithotripsy is higher intensity for kidney stones. So this is low intensity.

So the GAINSWave therapy basically works by angiogenesis, new blood vessel growth, and growth factors, bringing new growth factors to the area. Usually, we do a treatment once a week or twice a week. It's about 6 sessions. It doesn't hurt. It's not painful.

It's nonsurgical. It's not invasive. Patients see results, you know, significant. We're getting great responses. And usually, we do 6 treatments or 12.

Some people have Peyronie's disease, which is a plaque, a fibrous plaque, an injury to the penis. This has been curing it in patients.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Incredible. That's incredible.

Dr. George Shapiro
And I mean, and these are young patients that we're seeing, you know, thirties and forties, some fifties and sixties. But, you know, we're seeing we're we're seeing some great results with with GainsWave therapy. It's, you know

Dr. Mark Hyman
So does it does it when you get, like, 6 to 12 treatments, is it a temporary result or does effects for longer lasting?

Dr. George Shapiro
We're seeing results lasting up to 2 years.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's sort of like having a cardiac bypass in a sense. Right? You get new vessels.

Dr. George Shapiro
Well, yeah. Not exactly. I mean, it it that's the mechanism of it. Let's say you exercised your whole life compared to someone who was sedentary their whole life, and you both had a heart attack. Yep.

From the books, remember some of these studies, the person who exercise is gonna have a smaller heart attack. The person who doesn't exercise will have a larger heart attack. What does exercise do? Grows new blood vessels. So, you know, if someone who exercise a lot, who has some blood vessel growth, but, you know, sorta like is having a lot of ED issues because they change their diet, they have some inflammation, and their blood vessels are kinda like constricted, This will this will help knock off some of the calcium inside the vessel wall.

It'll increase dilation of blood flow, bring in more growth factors, and and basically It's

Dr. Mark Hyman
like regenerative medicine for the penis, basically.

Dr. George Shapiro
Correct.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And it and it may allow you to throw away your Viagra or Cialis. Right?

Dr. George Shapiro
So so, you know, Cialis and Viagra work locally on the penis by phosphodiesterase, p pde 5, you know, receptor inhibitors. And what this is doing is you're inhibiting constriction, so you're dilating. But there's other side effects with with some of these medications. It reduces blood flow to the eye. Sometimes you can have, increased Yeah.

You have visual changes. You can have increased reflux by reducing lower esophageal sphincter pressure in the esophagus. I mean, you know, sometimes they're great. Like Cialis 5 milligrams daily is great for people with BPH because it reduces pressure on the prostate and enable, you know, allows you to urinate better. That's been a help with a lot of patients, but sometimes combination therapies help.

Yeah. Like we mentioned exosomes before. So now we're taking exosomes and we're and we're doing what's called, an XX shot, or an XY shot. And basically what that does

Dr. Mark Hyman
You call it a P shot, is that it?

Dr. George Shapiro
So I actually trained with Doctor. Ranell's and learned PRP and did a lot of PRP, the P shot, the O shot, which helps a lot of women and men. But that's with their own blood. We spin it down and we re inject it back into them. So we're getting some growth factors.

Yeah. But if you compare PRP with some of the new therapy exosomes, you know, exosome, you're talking about, you know, a tremendous increase in growth factors that basically make the results so much more powerful. So, you know, I'm doing some PRP now, not as much. I'm doing a lot more exosomes. I think exosomes will be the future.

I know a

Dr. Mark Hyman
lot of

Dr. George Papanicolaou
the- Is

Dr. Mark Hyman
it injected directly into the penis or- Yeah. So,

Dr. George Shapiro
you

Dr. George Papanicolaou
know, you

Dr. Mark Hyman
sexual organs. Mhmm.

Dr. George Shapiro
You go right into you go right into the penis. You numb up the area. Sometimes you can do a nerve block. It's no pain at all. And it takes about 15 minutes.

And the response is significant. Patients with prostate cancer, who have decreased sensitivity, who got radiation, who now can't get an erection, now suddenly can get an erection after an exosome injection.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's amazing.

Dr. George Shapiro
Yeah. So

Dr. Mark Hyman
how's how's Gainesville different from other p, treatments for erectile dysfunction or performance enhancing drugs?

Dr. George Shapiro
Well, because the GAINSWave is the only therapy that's that's basically using low intensity shockwave therapy.

Dr. George Papanicolaou
So it's

Dr. Mark Hyman
not pharmacologic. It's not invasive.

Dr. George Shapiro
It's drug free, not invasive, surgery free. We it improves blood flow, gives a better erection quality. You have harder erections, more full erections. Sexual performance has improved. And actually, a lot of patients will come who are younger who wanna increase performance.

They have good erections, but they want performance. They wanna be able to last longer. So they come in for performance issues, not ED issues. And then we have maintenance. Once the patient goes through their 6 or 12 sessions, they'll come back once a season and get a maintenance treatment.

But the combination thing of exosomes, PRP,

Dr. Mark Hyman
or, you know, exercise, all

Dr. George Shapiro
of them. Engagement. Exercise, so important. Diet, eating less sugar. Mhmm.

Keeping those vessels dilated, very important. And and we're seeing, you know, it's a safe procedure too. Everyone's concerned about, you know, surgery. I mean, we used to, I used to send a lot of patients for for bypass, coronary artery bypass graft surgery. It's a, you know, if if you need it, you get it.

But I mean, right now we're trying to do multi vessel stenting. And I I I can speak for hours on just cardiology and traditional, you know, disease management. But, I mean, here, we're talking about, you know, more natural ways to to stay younger and healthier and live longer.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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