Doctors who attend people with diabetes are aware that sexual life problems are very frequent, both in men and women, and represent a reason for concern, since they affect life as a couple and the quality of life.
In men, the sexual alteration most associated with diabetes is erectile dysfunction, which is defined as the inability to achieve or maintain erection.
Surveys have been conducted for decades in different countries that show that the frequency of erectile dysfunction occurs at a lower age and is three times higher in men with diabetes, which increases with age (from 1 to 10 percent in children under 40 yearsand 50 to 100 percent in over 70 years).
With the global increase in the number of people with diabetes, it is estimated that, as a result of this disease, in 2025 there will be 322 million men with erectile dysfunction.
While in the case of women there is still the need to have more information about the sexual disorders of their gender, in 2002 a survey conducted in Belgium demonstrated the importance of being aware about these disorders, since sexual dysfunctionIn women with diabetes it includes: disorders of sexual desire, problems to reach orgasm, painful intercourse (trigger) and depression.
To the above is added age, the degree of lack of control of dyslipidemias, arterial hypertension, obesity and overweight, smoking, sedentary life, nerve damage that control functions such as heart rate and digestion (autonomic neuropathy), as well asThe consumption of some anti-hypertensive, diuretic, antidepressant or fibrate medications.
It is important to note that medicines to control blood glucose do not affect or associate with sexual alterations.Each treatment must be individualized, but one of the fundamental elements to improve these disorders is to keep stable blood sugar levels.This is achieved with measures that may or may not require medications.
At the currentmost popular antidiabetics in the world since 1980 because it helps the liver produce less glucose, and glymepirid, which specializes in stimulating the beta cells of the pancreas to produce more insulin.
Source: Dr. Joel Rodríguez Saldaña
