Eat These Foods for Powerful Erections and Increased Penile Blood Flow

can food give you stronger better erections I'm Dr Reina Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today I'm going to be talking about how your diet can help you get stronger erections and even help you maintain your erections throughout your life this is not a video where I'm just going to put up foods and be like eat this eat this eat this eat this we're going to talk about why this makes sense and what kind of things you can do for your lifestyle to help you improve your sexual function now I think it's important to understand

that the number one reason that people start having weaker erections is because of blood flow issues to have a strong erection you need to have good blood flow into the penis now why does blood flow become a problem one is the arteries of the penis are pretty small so before you see problems anywhere else in your body like heart issues brain issues you're going to see problems in your penis so this is things like high blood pressure diabetes high cholesterol all of these sorts of things can cause issues which can then cause narrowing to the

blood vessels to the penis so these sorts of foods are meant to help improve the health of your blood vessels to allow blood to flow in better and also some of these Foods may help with nitric oxide now nitric oxide is the ignition for erection it's released by blood vessels to start the Cascade of signals to then create an erection so some of these foods will will help the release of nitric oxide so let's get to it the most studied dietary intervention for sexual function is the Mediterranean diet and there is some really strong evidence

for the Mediterranean diet now this does not mean that other diets are bad or not good but I'm going to break down exactly what factors of the Mediterranean diet help but let me explain where this data is at the current time so in 2020 a study was released in jamama which is a big medical journal and this looked at data from over 21,000 men who were enrolled in something called the health professionals follow-up study now they assessed these men and they looked at what sort of dietary patterns they were having using a questionnaire and it

asked questions about what sort of food intake they had about every four years and they were Then followed for an average of about 10.8 years now this is a really long time to follow people I want to be clear most studies are like 1 year 3 years 10 years over 10 years cuz average is 10.8 years is a really rigorously well done study and so they looked at these guys think what are they eating and do they develop erectile dysfunction and so what they found was that men who had the highest category of adherence meaning

they're really stuck to the Mediterranean diet had a 22% lower risk of developing a dysfunction compared to men who were in the lowest category of adherence mean they didn't follow these dietary constraints they also looked at something called the Ahi or alternative healthy eating index and this is a scored diet essentially index and it scores diets based on the consumption of certain what they called healthy foods and these healthy foods were fruits vegetables whole grains nuts legumes and fish and and they limited the intake of red and processed Meats sugar sweetened beverages trans fats and

sodium and essentially they found that men who were in the top 20% of index had a 22% lower risk of Ed compared to those who were in the lowest 20% so very similar to the Mediterranean diet and the strongest effect of this dietary change was in younger men now the Mediterranean diet and this AI diet are rich in several key components that includes things like olive oil which are high in monounsaturated fats and antioxidants particularly oo canol which has anti-inflammatory properties also fruits and vegetables now these are great obviously they're high INF flavonoids which I'm

going to talk about next these improve blood flow by enhancing the production of nitric oxide as I mentioned earlier there's also whole grains which are rich in fiber and nutrients that support cardiovascular health and what's good for your heart is good for your penis fish is high in omega-3 fatty acids which also have anti-inflammatory properties and can improve endothelial function so that's blood vessel cell function so overall having a diet that is sort of optimizing a multitude of things that's good for your heart and your blood vessels now I mentioned earlier flavonoids flavonoid rich foods

now these are essentially found in plant-based Foods uh and drinks including things like fruit vegetables tea herbs and wine and these essentially work by reducing inflammation inhibiting the oxidation of LDL and which is a sort of cholesterol that's bad for your body and increasing the production of nitric oxide again so this then helps promote healthy blood vessel function and it reduces cardiovascular risk or heart risk so bottom line you're getting better heart health better blood flow and ultimately better blood flow to your penis so there was another large scale study which was published in the

American journal of clinical nutrition and it followed over 25,000 men again these are two really big studies we've talked about so far they followed them from 1986 to 2010 and they measured their diet again using food frequency questionnaires every four years so very similar to the other study and they looked at their rectile function using a fivepoint scale they then found that men who regularly consumed foods that were rich in flavonoids tended to have a 9 to 11% reduced risk of developing erectile dysfunction and the strongest Association were foods with like berries citrus fruits and

red wine of course in moderation now fruit intake was associated with a 14% reduction in Ed citrus fruits were associated with a 12% reduction in Ed and regularly blueberry intake so blueberry specifically saw a 22% reduction in Ed and when you combined high flavonoid intake with physical activity those men had a 21% lower risk of Ed compared to those who did not take flavonoids in and had no physical activity these specific types of berries like blueberries and strawberries are rich in what's called anthocyanins and citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruits are high in flavonones so

both of these types of flavonoids actually work again by improving blood flow and enhancing nitric oxide production in fact in another case control study looking at just 350 young men they found that for each additional daily fruit portion that they consumed it lowered their Ed Risk by 38 8% let me say that again if they ate fruit one serving a day it reduced their risk of Ed by 38% now the next Food Group we're going to talk about is nuts specifically pistachios now pistachios are interesting and they're specifically good because they're a good source of

one plant-based protein they have fiber antioxidants and they're rich in the amino acid arginine now if you've if you're new here L Arginine I've talked Arginine before but it's a precursor for nitric oxide and often times people will look to take supplements like L Arginine for the Improvement of erectile function so pistachios specifically have a high amount of arginine so there was a study it's a very small study but they looked at 17 married men who had Ed for at least 12 months now these guys were then given 100 GS of pistachios daily for 3

weeks and what they saw in this very small study was they saw a significant Improvement in erectile function and blood flow on what we call a penal Doppler now this is important because a Doppler is a measurement of blood flow going into the penis and we often use that to assess how good vascular function is in the penis in men who have Ed the fact that they're actually using an objective measurement like a penile Doppler is is actually particularly interesting because now we're seeing that not only is you seeing Improvement based on what the patient

is telling you and validated questionnaires but you're also seeing Improvement on a validated instrument like a ultrasound now in another study they also included nuts just generally 60 g a day of mixed nuts which was like 30 gam of walnuts 15 gam of almonds 15 gam of hazelnuts and so in this smaller study they found that young men who didn't have any issues with Ed who ate these mixed nuts had an improvement in orgasmic function and sexual desire so you know if you enjoy nuts it is useful to incorporate a small amount like 100 gram

a day of nuts into your diet now be careful if you eat too many they are very high in calories high calorie density so they can make you increase weight now the next one might surprise you this is caffeine now how would coffee or caffeine help improve sexual function so coffee and or caffeine cause relaxation of the blood flow or the arteries that carry blood flow into the penis as well as the smooth muscle of the penis cuz they have a vasod dilatory effect this then causes increased blood flow to the penis which can help

sexual function so there was a study published in plos 1 that looked at 3700 men and they looked at what's called n haanes data and Hayes is the national health and nutrition examination survey so they take data from this survey where they ask men about how much caffeine they're taking based on four different drinks essentially coffee soda both regular and low cal soda tea and energy drinks and they then measure how much caffeine they're taking in as well as do they have uh issues with sexual function which is based on surveys and so ultimately they

found that men who consumed 855 to 170 migs of caffeine per day which is about 2 to three cups of coffee had a 42% lower risk of erectile dysfunction compared to those who didn't drink coffee now this was even true for men who had high blood pressure or who were overweight or obese so that's really impressive because a lot of this stuff that we're finding on food really is all done in young healthy people so you don't know if you have other issues like high blood pressure is it going to help you but it does

help these particular men it did not was not seen in men with diabetes however it's important that you use moderation if you drink too much caffeine it can obviously have negative effects one is that it can affect your sleep quality and it might even irritate your bladder now let's talk about some foods that people often talk about that might improve sexual function but they don't have a lot of strong scientific evidence one of these is watermelon so watermelon contains citrine which our bodies then convert to Arginine which is again a precursor to nitric oxide and

so there have been studies that have looked at watermelon intake in seeing how much it improves our Arginine in the body but not specifically in the realm of erectile dysfunction so what they found is that drinking something like six glasses of watermelon juice can improve the levels of arginine in your body another one that might have benefit but has not been extensively studied is dark chocolate specifically dark chocolate with at least 70% of cocoa content in it has a lot of flavonols in it or flavonoids and this will then increase levels of nitric oxide in

the blood which can improve again blood flow and vascular function lastly nitrates so when you look at nitric oxide they found that essentially consuming nitrat foods like spinach beetroot juice arugula can increase nitric oxide levels in the body and this then therefore May potentially improve blood flow and erectile function although no direct study has been done now how much nitrate do you really need so when you look at nitrate metabolism it's suggested that consuming somewhere between 450 and 550 Mig of nitrate about 2 and 1 half hours before the physical activity or sexual activity in

this case can lead to noticeable improvements in blood flow so how much nitrate is in spinach and all those other things so spinach contains about 250 milligram of nitrate per 100 G serving arugula contains 450 G per 100 G serving and beetroot also contains around 250 Mig of nitrate per 100 G so you would need to have at least one or two servings of these things to see the benefit it's really important while certain foods might help others can harm you and can make erectile function worse one is excessive alcohol consumption now when you drink

a lot of alcohol it can cause ED and so you can check out my video on whiskey dick where I talk about this and we know that chronic alcohol abuse can be associated with sexual dysfunction also while this is not a food smoking if you are smoking it will kill your erections so stop smoking uh that is one modifiable thing that you can do today to help your erections now here's some tips how can you incorporate some of these Foods into your diet without dramatically changing your life so one is you may want to start

your day with a smoothie so you can incorporate things like berries spinach and maybe even a little bit of dark chocolate you may want to start adding fatty fish into your meals two to three times a week if you can um and then consider add a snack of pistachios rather than having Doritos but again make sure you're only getting about 100 gram you don't really need more than that uh because as I mentioned it is very calorie dense and easy to overeat you can also add leafy greens to just whatever you're eating your sandwiches or

your salads um and it really doesn't change too much and if you enjoy coffee drink it uh don't feel like you have to abstain as long as it doesn't affect your sleep and your quality of life in other ways like your bladder um coffee may be helpful for sexual function and A good rule of thumb is to try to get whole grains instead of refined carbohydrates so wheat bread instead of white bread um try to get whole wheat pastas and cook them at home and try to use things like olive oil or avocado oil as

your primary cooking oil but the most important thing is that you want to make sustainable changes you don't want to change everything all at once maybe make one small change and see how that goes small consistent changes are what is going to make a big difference over time this is not a race this is you and the rest of your life now if you find that fresh fruits or vegetables are pretty expensive in your uh area it may be useful to just get some frozen fruit you can always remember that frozen fruit and vegetables are

often just as good and just as nutritious as fresh and definitely more affordable you can also get canned fish that can be a good alternative to fresh fish for a more cost-effective alternative so just to recap you want to aim to incorporate a balanced diet that has fruits vegetables whole grains fish if you can healthy fats and this is not only for your heart but good for your erections we've also discussed things like omega-3 fatty acids flavonoids L Arginine and N dietary nitrates so all of those things can be optimized through your diet and help

improve blood flow and Vascular Health to your overall body as well as to the penis and lastly while dietary factors can help they are not a cure you're not just going to start eating pistachios every day and magically your erections are going to get better you have to do a full evaluation of your overall health optimize your high blood pressure your cholesterol if you're diabetic maintain your sugars these are the most important things to regulate so that you don't continue to develop issues with erections so make sure you talk to your primary care doctor and

get yourself EV valued to make sure there's no underlying factors that might be causing issues with your erections and as always I'm going to take care of yourself because you're worth it