Erectile Dysfunction Drugs Linked To Higher Rates Of STDs   

Middle-aged and older men who take erectile dysfunction, ED, drugs such as Viagra are more likely to have sexually transmitted diseases, a new study of more than 1.4 million men has discovered. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Southern California say the fault lies not with the drugs but rather the high risk behaviours of the men who request them. And doctors should counsel these patients about safe sex practices, they said.

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Small studies of men who have sex with men have associated the use of ED drugs with higher risk behaviours and increased rates of STDs, but this report, published in the 6 July issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, is said to be the first to examine the relationship between ED drugs and STD risk in a large, representative sample of privately insured older men. The researchers had no way of knowing how many of the men were bisexual or homosexual.

“Primary care doctors don’t usually talk to older men about safe sexual practices, and that’s partly because rates of STDs are much lower in this group than in younger men, on the order of one per 1,000 individuals,” said study author Dr. Anupam B. Jena, an internal medicine resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. “But what our findings suggest is that just by virtue of asking for an ED drug, these men are identifying themselves as being at two to three times higher risk of STDs.”

Jena and his co-authors examined health insurance claims records covering 1997 though 2006 from 44 large U.S. employers. The study group included about 34,000 male beneficiaries over 40 who used ED drugs, for whom the researchers collected data covering one year before and one year after the first prescription was filled, and nearly 1.37 million men over 40 who were non-users, for whom claims data was also collected.

Men who had been prescribed an ED drug were two to three times more likely than non-users to have sexually transmitted diseases, and this was true both in the year before and after the first prescription was filled. The most frequently reported STD was HIV/AIDS, followed by chlamydia. The data gathered could not indicate whether ED drug use itself increased STD risk, but Jena said he and his colleagues are investigating that question in a separate study.

Tags:  erectile dysfunction, University of Southern California, Viagra