Coffee tastes delicious regardless of the time or the place. A cool glass of cold brew on the beach is just as pleasing as a hot mug of Swiss Water Processed decaf between your palms on a cold winter night.
There’s more to coffee than just the taste and experience, though. It’s a natural product with many different health benefits, too, which is exactly why every so often a new study or report pops up with yet another way that coffee is good for us.
The Power of Coffee
Often the health benefits of coffee consist of minor perks, like providing antioxidants or helping burn fat, but sometimes they can change our entire world. Apart from giving you that jolt to stay awake, coffee can also help:
In addition, that morning cuppa has been shown to be helpful in preventing and combating threats like Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer's, dementia, heart disease, and even cancer.
While coffee lovers the world ‘round can rejoice at such a hefty list of healthy reasons to refill their mug, there’s one group, in particular, that has even more reason to be excited: men. Why? Because coffee has officially been linked to helping prevent erectile dysfunction.
The Issue of Erectile Dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common issue that affects more than 12 million American men. The reasons for the malady are numerous, although several specific ones tend to be more prevalent:
Don’t get too discouraged if you struggle with ED. It turns out that there’s hope, and it’s sitting in your mug. That’s right. Research has shown that a proper dose of freshly brewed java on a regular basis can actually help prevent erectile dysfunction.
Coffee and Erectile Dysfunction
A few years ago, a study revealed the fact that men over the age of 20 who drank 2-3 cups of coffee per day were significantly less likely to suffer from ED.
If you’re wondering how a cup of coffee can improve someone’s sex life, it turns out that caffeine is the key to it all. In fact, caffeine has cardiovascular benefits that help relax arteries while simultaneously increasing blood flow — two key ingredients in avoiding ED.
“But wait,” you might be asking, “why the two to three cups figure? Why not one cup? Why not ten?” What the researchers found was that the most important statistic was to reach somewhere between 85 and 303 mg of caffeine per day. When broken down, a daily dose of between 85-170mg lowered participants likelihood to struggle with ED by 42%, while roughly doubling that number yielded a 39% decreased chance of dealing with the condition.
While the reported amount of caffeine needed to combat ED was specific, the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee is a much more fluid number. In fact, some coffees can be wildly over-caffeinated. Biohazard Coffee, for example, can have just shy of 1000 mg per cup. Talk about a heart stopper.
On average, though, a typical cup ‘of joe tends to have between 80 and 100mg of caffeine. In other words, two cups of lightly caffeinated coffee should land you right around 160mg, while three strong cups will typically be around 300mg, which lines up neatly with the results of the study.
The One Exception
The results of caffeine in the battle against ED were excellent across the board, even if the coffee drinker had high blood pressure or was overweight. But there was one exception: The one area where a daily dose of caffeine didn’t seem to make a measurable difference was with those suffering from diabetes. In those cases, the odds simply didn’t change.
If you’re predisposed to developing diabetes, don’t throw in the towel and stop drinking coffee quite yet. As an interesting side note, the risk of type 2 diabetes itself can actually be significantly reduced by a regular intake of coffee. Once again, the caffeine is the difference maker, as it increases globulin levels in the blood, which in turn bind to sex hormones — in men it would be testosterone — and consequently help reduce the risk of developing the disorder.
Cause and Effect
The specific cause and effect that caffeine has on ED is still being studied and will require more research. However, at this point, the evidence that is available has led to the basic assumption that caffeine’s natural ability to relax the muscles helps to stimulate blood flow, leading to an increased ability to get and keep an erection.
But, again, many of the details are still based on scientific hypothesizing. A definitive answer will only arrive once further research surfaces. Nevertheless, signs point to coffee being a way to help prevent erectile dysfunction. Make sure to refill your cup and keep that coffee flowing.
