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Research indicates that the treatment of sleep apnea with continuous positive airway protection (CPAP) therapy also improves erectile function. Erectile dysfunction is common in men suffering from all forms of sleep apnea.
Medical professionals have long recognized that men with sleep apnea often suffer from erectile dysfunction as well. So well established is this link that doctors frequently check patients with symptoms of impotence to see if they might also be suffering from this sleep disorder.
There now seems to be growing evidence that a widely popular treatment for sleep apnea — CPAP (continuous positive airway protection) therapy — can help overcome symptoms of impotence as well. In fact, even men who were not suffering from ED reported an improvement in the quality of their erections after spending several nights on a CPAP machine.
How CPAP Therapy Works
In CPAP therapy, men with sleep apnea wear a mask connected to a machine that sends a steady flow of pressurized air into the throat to ensure that the airway remains open throughout the night.
For those unfamiliar with sleep apnea, it’s “a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts,” according to MayoClinic.org. In fact, “apnea” is derived from a Greek word that means “want of breath.” If your wife or significant other complains that you snore loudly during sleep and if you wake up tired after what should have been a good night’s rest, the chances are good that you may be suffering from some form of sleep apnea.
According to MayoClinic.org, the most common form of this disorder is obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, which occurs when your throat muscles relax during sleep. Another form of the disorder is called central sleep apnea, which is usually caused by your brain’s failure to send proper signals to the muscles that control breathing. OSA is the form of sleep apnea most widely associated with ED.
Walter Reed Study
Among recent studies that show this therapy can relieve ED symptoms in men with OSA was one conducted at the Sleep Disorders Center of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Joseph Dombrowsky, a medical doctor on the staff of the center, led the study and presented its results at SLEEP 2012: Associated Professional Sleep Societies 26th Annual Meeting.
The study at Walter Reed covered 92 men who were newly diagnosed with OSA and just beginning therapy. In an interview with Medscape Medical News, Dombrowsky said the men in the study group had an average age of 48.5 years, mean body mass index of 29, and an average of 38 breathing incidents per hour, a sign of “pretty significant apnea.”
43.5 Percent Impotent
At the outset of the study, 43.5 percent of the study subjects had ED, defined as a score of less than 25 on the International Index of Erectile Function. Impotence was classified as mild in 24 percent of all test subjects, moderate in 8 percent, and severe in 12 percent.
The high incidence of ED symptoms among such relatively young men came as a surprise to Dombrowsky and his team. Similarly surprising, said the doctor, was how significantly CPAP therapy reduced symptoms of impotence among test subjects.
After treatment with this therapy, researchers noted a positive minimal clinically important difference (MCID) in 54.4 percent of men with mild ED, in 28.6 percent of those with moderate symptoms, and in 27.3 percent of those with severe symptoms.
Sexual Desire Increases
Dombrowsky also reported that levels of sexual desire, as measured by IIEF, seemed to improve in all test subjects, including those with no symptoms of impotence at all.
Although researchers can’t be certain why CPAP therapy seems to help relieve ED symptoms, Dombrowsky told Medscape Medical News that “we can postulate that improving oxygenation at night or sleeping better improves your energy and libido.”
Further evidence of CPAP therapy’s curative powers comes from a study conducted at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia. In that study, 61 men diagnosed with both sleeping difficulties and erection problems were treated with CPAP therapy under the supervision of sleep researcher Kerri Melehan, a doctoral student.
Normal Erectile Activity
In an interview with Daily Mail Australia, Melehan offered an overview of normal erectile activity during the sleep cycle. “What normally happens during sleep is that men have erection during REM [rapid eye movement] sleep around about every 90 minutes, and when they wake up with erection that’s because they woke up in the middle of REM. But if you have sleep apnea, that can interrupt your sleep, and in particular it interrupts REM sleep and also the erections that should be happening, so it [the penis] doesn’t get that practice overnight that’s needed.”
The Australian study led by Melehan was conducted between 2010 and 2013, and its subjects were men who had not been previously treated for OSA. Some men underwent authentic CPAP therapy while others were given a sham version of the treatment. Among the same group of 61 men, roughly half were given an ED drug while the remaining half got a placebo.
Over the course of three months, Melehan’s research team queried study subjects about their sexual activity and the quality of their erections. Researchers also counted and measured erections during sleep and found that CPAP therapy increased erections.
CPAP Helps Most Men
Melehan told Daily Mail Australia, “We can report that if you are a man with sleep apnea and erectile dysfunction you’re better off being treated for sleep apnea than using drugs to treat the erectile dysfunction.” Sadly, however, CPAP doesn’t work for some men, she said.
Of the link between sleep apnea and ED, a large-scale study at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City found that men suffering from impotence were more than twice as likely to suffer from sleep apnea as their normal counterparts in the study. It also found that the incidence of sleep apnea increased in tandem with the severity of the ED symptoms. As a result, the Mount Sinai research team concluded that men with ED should probably be screened for OSA.
Other Benefits
In a posting to TheSleepDoctor.com, clinical psychologist Michael J. Breus points out that overcoming symptoms of impotence and firing up your libido are just two of the extra benefits that can be derived from CPAP therapy. He notes that regular use of CPAP also appears to be effective in reducing sensitivity to pain, a particularly significant finding for those who suffer from fibromyalgia and other chronic pain conditions.
The key to achieving all these benefits from CPAP, says Breus, is consistent use of the treatment. He acknowledges that getting accustomed to the machine takes some adjustment, but he suggests that patients stick with it to reap the benefits it can bring.
For those who find it difficult to fall asleep while wearing the face mask, he suggests that a short-term course of prescription sleep aids might help patients to get started. He also recommends that male patients stay in the same bed with their partners after beginning therapy. The noise of CPAP is far less annoying than snoring, and research shows that men who stay in the same bed with their wives tend to adhere more strictly to therapy than those who opt to sleep alone.
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Don Amerman is a freelance author who writes extensively about a wide array of nutrition and health-related topics.
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