For reasons that nobody is fully sure of, society seems to have decided that Real Men Eat Meat. It should perhaps be taken as proof that the universe has a sense of irony, therefore, that it seems a vegan diet might be best for preventing that most manly of health problems: erectile dysfunction.
Why? Well, a new paper has reviewed the evidence – and as it turns out, the science is surprisingly straightforward.
Why ED?
The first question, upon finding something floppy when it should be hard, is obvious: why? And the answer here is… well, it’s unfortunately vague: “Depending on the etiology, ED [erectile dysfunction] is classified as psychogenic, organic (i.e., neurogenic, hormonal, arteriogenic, cavernosal, or drug-induced), or mixed psychogenic and organic,” begins the new paper.
In other words, it can be caused by anything from your general health, to the meds you’re on, to just not being in the right headspace right now. But one of the most common causes is to do with your arteries: lacking a baculum, human boners require an influx of blood to achieve tumescence – so when something’s hinky with the vessels letting that in, erections can be more difficult to produce.
It’s such an important part of the whole process, in fact, that suffering from ED can actually be used as a pretty good predictor of cardiovascular ill-health. “When the arteries have damage to them, like [with] heart disease where you get plaques in your arteries, or high blood pressure when the vessels actually become a little bit thicker […] this can actually affect your penis before it affects anywhere else in the body,” confirmed licensed urologist and sex educator Rena Malik, who was not involved in the new paper, in a video last year.
“[That’s] because the arteries to the penis are significantly smaller than the arteries to the heart,” she explained. “This obviously can make it more difficult to get an erection, because the blood has to overcome this increased pressure to get into the penis.”
So small are these arteries, in fact, that the penis needs a little kick to get the whole shebang rolling. “When you get aroused, the nerves […] will release a substance called nitric oxide,” Malik explained. “You’ll often hear me say nitric oxide is the ‘ignition’ for erections – when this is released by your body the muscles relax, and the arteries widen, which allows blood flow to flow in.”
Of course, these are far from the only causes of erectile dysfunction – but they’re obviously pretty darn important. So now we have the background, let’s answer what we know you’ve been asking: why would going vegan help?
Why vegan?
Here’s the thing about plant-based diets: all morality or ethical considerations aside, it’s just a really healthy way to live. That’s especially true when it comes to cardiovascular health, with vegan and vegetarian (sometimes condensed into the mock-expletive “veg*n”) diets being linked to lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, lower risk of heart disease, and lower risk of diabetes – nominally an endocrine disorder, but important for quantifying heart health as it can interfere with the lining of blood vessels.
If all that sounds familiar, it should: it’s pretty much exactly the list of risk factors for erectile dysfunction we covered earlier.
That’s why eating heart-healthy food is often prescribed for people hoping to treat or avoid the condition: “Eating too many unhealthy foods that cause high cholesterol, high blood sugar or obesity can impact blood flow and, as a result, the ability to get and maintain an erection,” Neel Patel, a GP from LloydsPharmacy Online Doctor, told the BBC in 2023.
And according to the new paper, a vegan diet seems almost target-designed to help with your dick problems: “A plant-based diet focused on whole plant foods […] provides nitrates, L-arginine, and L-citrulline, substrates for nitric oxide production,” the paper points out; “In addition, this diet lowers low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, trimethylamine N-oxide, postprandial triglycerides, advanced glycation end product, inflammation, and vasoconstrictors levels, contributing to higher nitric oxide concentrations, increased endothelial progenitor cells preservation and decreased arterial stiffness.”
In other words, it’s useful for just about every aspect of the whole erection process. It helps your body produce nitric oxide – that “trigger” for arousal that kickstarts the blood flow – and it helps make your arteries more elastic and less clogged. More elastic means more volume; that means more blood, and that means more boning.
It seems like a slam-dunk, at least for these specific issues – so what does it mean for you?
Eggplant emoji
So, the takeaway here is obvious, right? Eat more fruit and vegetables – good advice generally, and now with an added sexy motivation. But it’s a little more complicated than that: to really get the benefit, the review specifies that whole plant foods, rather than just any old vegan dish, should be prioritized.
What does that mean? Well, it’s basically food that hasn’t had stuff removed: it means eating an apple rather than drinking the juice, or opting for wholewheat grains rather than processed ones. It’s an important difference – after all, technically a fifth of whiskey and a bucket of fries are “vegan”, but nobody would claim that makes for a heart-healthy diet.
Nevertheless, the conclusion of the review is clear. A vegan diet, focused on whole plant foods, is likely beneficial for erectile dysfunction – and for a handful of quite sensible reasons. It lowers LDL cholesterol, which damages blood vessels and reduces nitric oxide production; it significantly lowers proteins that can reduce blood vessel flexibility, while adding in important nitric oxide-boosting nutrients from things like watermelon and blueberries. It will provide a lower salt intake, which will again help blood vessel flexibility, and provide B vitamins to improve blood flow (the one exception being B12, which is notoriously difficult to get with a vegan diet).
And, hey – even if it doesn’t help with your erectile dysfunction, you’ll still have the benefit of minor things like a lower risk of various cancers, a lower risk of heart disease, an improved ability to exercise (yes, seriously) and potentially (don’t quote us on it) a longer lifespan. And that ain’t nothing.
“Ultimately, there’s no harm in trying to live a healthier lifestyle,” Patel pointed out. “Ensuring you’re eating a balanced diet with the recommended amount of fruit, vegetables and whole grains is a brilliant place to start.”
The review is published in The Journal of Nutrition.
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