Increased blood sugar destroys small blood vessels

Some nerve

I’ve talked before about the importance of protecting your small blood vessels–particularly if you’ve got diabetes or pre-diabetes. Increased blood sugar destroys them, resulting in a shortage of blood to areas of the body critical for everyday functioning–including the nerves.

When you don’t get enough blood to the nerves, they die, leading to a condition familiar to many diabetics: neuropathy.

The most well-known symptoms of neuropathy are numbness and pain in your feet, fingers, and hands. But it doesn’t stop there…

According to a new study in the British Journal of Neurology International, A group of Spanish researchers found that the nerve damage associated with neuropathy may also contribute to erectile dysfunction.

The study included 90 men with sexual problems, including men with heart disease or type 2 diabetes. Researchers asked each patient about their erectile dysfunction and tested for nerve damage.

Nearly 69 percent of these men had nerve damage, primarily peripheral neuropathy. The authors concluded that the impact of neuropathy in erectile dysfunction has been underestimated until now.

This serves as yet another important reason to get your blood sugar under control now, before this becomes a problem for you (or gets any worse, if you’re already battling neuropathy or erectile dysfunction).

Eating right, getting some exercise, and losing weight are the first steps, but there are also a couple of supplements that can help.

Both pine bark extract and magnesium help improve blood flow throughout the body–including the penis. Pine bark extract is only available as a supplement, but there are some delicious foods that are rich in magnesium. Spinach, beans, almonds, pine nuts, halibut, brown rice, and quinoa (another tasty whole grain) are all good sources.