Highlights
- Pesticides can interfere with almost every physiological factor involved in the erection process.
- You can ingest pesticides through food, water, or direct skin contact.
- Pesticides affect the hormones, cause physical damage to the reproductive organs, and deregulate biochemical processes.
- The widespread use of pesticides may partially explain why male fertility is dropping.
Pesticides can interfere with male sexual vigor and erectile function on many levels. They are among the common environmental factors that can cause erectile dysfunction and affect fertility.
What Are Pesticides?
Pesticides are chemical substances designed to eliminate pests such as insects, rodents, and unwanted plants. We also feed pesticides to animals to eradicate the pests they carry in their bodies. When we eat food products from those animals, we ingest the pesticides ourselves. Our bodies can also absorb pesticides through the skin from direct exposure.
What Causes an Erection?
Erection is a complex phenomenon involving a range of vascular, hormonal, mental, and other triggers.
To have an erection, you need an increased blood flow to your penis and smooth muscle relaxation in the organ. You also need to decrease the blood outflow to maintain your erection.
Achieving all of that requires perfectly orchestrated interactions. Your brain, nervous system, neurotransmitters, and various muscles have to work in unison.
Slip a spoke in any of the wheels that make up this intricate system, and you get erectile dysfunction.
How Pesticides Can Kill Erections
Exposure to pesticides can interfere with your hormones, damage tissue in your penis, and cause oxidative stress. Pesticides can affect almost every physiological process you need to get an erection.
Pesticides inhibit the breakdown of some neurotransmitters
Some pesticides may interfere with the breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine modulates sleep and plays a role in many other bodily functions, among them the synthesis of testosterone. Less testosterone equals less sexual vigor and an increased risk of erectile dysfunction.
Acetylcholine is not the only neurotransmitter pesticides can affect. Controlling signal transmission from one neuron to the other, neurotransmitters work in a delicate balance. Upsetting this balance by inhibiting or stimulating one or more neurotransmitters also upsets the hormonal balance. Declining testosterone production opens the doors to erectile dysfunction.
Pesticides promote oxidative stress
Many environmental factors cause oxidative stress. When you expose your skin to UV radiation, you trigger oxidative stress. The same happens when you ingest food containing heavy metals, breathe in pollutants, or take pesticides into your body.
Although it is a bodily function that has a role in regulating various biochemical and physical processes, excessive oxidative stress can damage the tissues of your genitals. Some pesticides interfere with the processes that lead to oxidative stress. Thus, they increase the odds of erectile dysfunction and infertility.
Furthermore, the compounds that cause oxidative stress inactivate nitric oxide in the body.
Sildenafil, the active component of Viagra, works by boosting nitric oxide. Pesticides have the opposite effect.
We know that increased oxidative stress kills cells, thereby accelerating aging. When there is too much oxidative stress in your body, calcium signaling on the cellular level increases and leads to cell death.
Pesticides Disrupt the Hormonal System
Your hormonal system is a finely tuned and balanced machine that is responsible for:
- The synthesis and secretion of hormones
- Transporting and binding various hormones
- Triggering hormonal action
- Eliminating natural hormones
Pesticides can affect the hormonal system through paths other than oxidative stress.
For example, glyphosate, a well-known pesticide, disrupts hormonal processes in men and women. It affects the genes and various other factors that control testosterone production. Glyphosate-based substances can also hurt the thyroid gland.
Different pesticides work differently to disrupt your hormones and attack your erections. They may even hurt reproductive ability from one generation to another.
Researchers noticed in rats that the male offspring of mothers exposed to pesticides developed reproductive problems.
- They produced less testosterone during puberty than other rats.
- During adulthood, their sperm production was lower than normal.
- They produced lower-quality sperm than their unaffected peers.
Pesticides Target Testosterone Production
In addition to disrupting the biochemical processes that control and regulate testosterone production, pesticides can attack the Leydig cells that produce this essential androgen.
The hormonal compound that controls the activity of these cells is the luteinizing hormone. Besides deregulating this hormone, pesticides like glyphosate damage the Leydig cells by attacking them directly.
By harming the cells that produce testosterone, pesticides can inflict damage in low concentrations, as quickly as one hour after exposure.
Another pesticide, dimethoate, suppresses sperm production and causes testicular damage.
It only takes tiny amounts of harmful substances to inflict significant damage. A 2021 rat study showed that glyphosate-based herbicides could cause a 35 percent drop in testosterone production.
The amount that triggered such a drastic response did not even reach toxicity levels, meaning that this pesticide alone can cause a 35 percent drop in your testosterone production, and you won’t even notice it.
Pesticides Affect Penile Tissue
The tunica albuginea is the connective sheath that surrounds the spongy tissue in your penis shaft. This spongy tissue fills with blood when you have an erection.
The tunica albuginea acts as an envelope. It prevents blood from rushing out of the penis and maintains pressure. As such, it has to be elastic to accommodate the expansion of the underlying tissue. When this envelope loses its elasticity, erectile dysfunction results.
Pesticides change the microstructure of the tunica albuginea, destroying its elastic fibers. A non-elastic sheath lets the blood escape, leaving the underlying tissue floppy.
Nowadays, pesticides are present in our environment, the food we eat, and the water we drink. Their presence partly explains why erectile dysfunction is so widespread and why male fertility has been steadily declining.
eDrugstore to the Rescue
If you’re having trouble with erectile dysfunction from any cause, lifestyle drugs like Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra can help. We can deliver the erectile dysfunction meds you need quickly and discreetly.
In addition to supplying you with the only FDA-approved oral medications for impotence, we offer a medical consultation with a U.S.-licensed physician, who can write your prescription.
At eDrugstore, virtual health visits and shipping are always free.
James West is a seasoned health and wellness writer with a focus on topics related to physiology, sleep, and men’s health. He has contributed articles on a range of subjects, from erectile dysfunction treatments and sleep aids to hair loss, providing well-researched insights to help readers make informed health decisions.