VIAGRA NEWS

Source: Reader's Digest

Date: 31-May-2008

ED and Your Heart

We've known that erectile dysfunction (ED) is an early warning sign of heart disease (let's face it: it's all about good arterial blood flow!). But a study in the May 27 Journal of the American College of Cardiology makes the link clearer than ever. Based in Hong Kong, the research followed 2,306 men with type 2 diabetes for four years. About one-fourth of them had ED, but none had any signs or history of heart disease. They found that those with ED were more than twice as likely to develop heart disease or have a major cardiac "event," such as a heart attack or stroke, than those who didn't have ED—even after accounting for all other risk factors.

The study authors conclude that this is an important finding, as it shows that ED is a true independent early warning sign of heart disease, one that may show up years in advance, when you can do something about it. The best treatment? The things you already know you need to do to reduce your heart-attack risk: healthy diet, more exercise, stop smoking, reduce belly fat, lower LDL cholesterol (below 100), lower blood pressure (below 130/80), and, if you need more help, talk to your doctor about taking statins. When you improve blood flow to your ticker, you improve your blood flow everywhere else, too.

Tomatoes and Your Prostate

There's been a lot of research and confusing advice about whether eating tomato products can help fight prostate cancer. New research from the American Association for Cancer Research may have gotten closer to an answer. The researchers isolated a compound in dehydrated tomato products called FruHis, and fed different types of tomato products to rats injected with prostate cancer-causing cells. The results? Those who got tomato paste plus extra FruHis survived the longest, and had far fewer prostate tumors (only 10 percent had tumors) than those who got tomato paste without extra FruHis (25 percent had tumors), tomato powder (30 percent had tumors), or no tomato products (60 percent of the no-tomatoes rats had prostate tumors). The researchers hope to study these effects in humans soon. Till then, regularly eating foods containing tomato paste couldn't hurt!