Study shows older men using erectile dysfunction drugs far more likely to have sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, due to sexual behavior
-- From "Study links erectile drugs, STD rates in users over 40" by Nicole Ostrow, Bloomberg News 7/6/10
Men age 40 or older who use Pfizer Inc.’s Viagra and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Cialis to boost sexual potency have higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases, a Harvard study found.
Men who took the impotence pills were almost three times more likely to have a sex disease, particularly HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the year before and after they started the drugs, according to research published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The higher rate of sexually spread infections could have more to do with the habits or temperament of the men using the erectile drugs than with the medicines enabling them to have more frequent or riskier sex, the authors said.
The findings suggest that users of drugs to treat erectile dysfunction, which also include Bayer AG’s Levitra, could be more likely to engage in unsafe sex than nonusers, said Anupam Jena, the lead author of the study. Although sexual diseases are far more common in young people, infection rates are increasing in those middle-aged and older, the researchers said.
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From "Men on ED Drugs Get More STDs" by Katrina Woznicki, WebMD Health News; Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD 7/6/10
An analysis of insurance records of 1.4 million men shows that there may be a population at risk for contracting and spreading sexually transmitted diseases and that this group should be targeted for safe-sex counseling.
There is no cause-and-effect association between erectile dysfunction treatments and sexually transmitted diseases, but the findings do suggest that people who use such treatments could benefit from interventions that emphasize safe-sex practices that reduce risk of infection.
About 40% of men ages 57 to 85 have some erectile dysfunction, researchers cite. The blockbuster impotence drug Viagra, one of the most popular treatments for erectile dysfunction, was approved by the FDA in 1998. As early as 2002 it was estimated that up to 20% of U.S. men over 40 had tried a drug to treat erectile dysfunction. From 1998 to 2003, Viagra use increased from 4.3% to 6.3% among this study sample. Two other ED drugs, Cialis and Levitra, were approved in 2003.
Earlier research has found that people aged 50 and older are one-sixth less likely to use a condom and one-fifth less likely to be tested for HIV compared with people in their 20s.
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