By Neil Shaw & Rom Preston-Ellis
An early-warning sign of a heart attack could be lurking in the bedroom, with up to half of men who suffer a heart attack experiencing a particular symptom up to seven years before their health took a serious turn for the worse.
This startling insight was shared on Steven Bartlett's Diary of a CEO podcast during a conversation with Dr Rena Malik, a urologist whose expertise extends beyond her specialism to encompass overall bodily health and mental wellbeing. During his chat with the Dragons' Den contender, Dr Malik highlighted the critical importance of sexual health and why it should be a routine part of medical inquiries, reports Bristol Live.
She pointed out that erectile dysfunction can precede a heart attack by up to seven years in men, suggesting that troubles in the bedroom could signal grave health issues down the line. Dr Malik didn't stop there; she suggested that women might also experience similar early warning signs. She explained the connection between sexual dysfunction and heart attacks, stating: "Say you're having erectile dysfunction and you are diagnosed today with erectile dysfunction, seven years later about 15 per cent of those men will have a heart attack."
She elaborated on the underlying causes, linking them to cardiovascular health: "And the reason for that is because if it's a blood flow issue, the arteries to the penis are about 1 to 2 mm, the arteries to the heart are about 3 to 4 mm. And when you have about a 50 per cent occlusion of a blood vessel because of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease - that organ will start to have problems.
"And so you will start to see erectile dysfunction in men who have vascular problems before you start having chest pain or other signs of heart disease. It's probably similarly in women although we don't have that data for women. Maybe if they all of a sudden are developing problems with arousal, maybe there that's an indicator.
"But again that's more complex and we don't have the data for that but certainly for men we have a clear indication that a problem with erections could precede really serious heart consequences and when you look at people who've had a heart attack about 50% of men will have had erectile dysfunction prior to that."
Dr Malik recommended that people address sexual health issues with their doctors for a healthy and happy life.
