Is the Viagra Risky – or is it the Sex?

Heart problems are one of the leading causes of erectile dysfunction.  However, if you carefully read through the Viagra medication info, you will find  a few precautions that Viagra may not be safe for men with heart problems.  So, how are we supposed to interpret this Catch 22?

Surprisingly, the heart disease precaution about Viagra doesn’t have so much to do with the drug as it does with what Viagra makes possible: sex.  Some very thorough studies have uncovered that 1% of heart attacks occur due to sexual activity.  For 50 year old men who are otherwise healthy, the risk of dying from a heart attack is 1 in a million.  However, this risk doubles when sexual activity is involved.  Still, 2 in a million is very low.  Even when you factor in heart disease, the risk of fatal heart attack from sexual activity is still low at 20 in a million.  In this sense, men with heart disease can feel safe engaging in sexual activity which is made possible from Viagra.

There is also an argument which goes against the precautions about sex in men with heart disease: sex could actually be healthy for the heart.  After all, sex is a type of exercise which gets the heart rate going and may also have you breaking a sweat.  The recent Massachusetts Male Aging Study showed that men who infrequently had sex (less than once per month) had a 45% greater chance of having cardiovascular disease than men who had sex at least twice weekly.  These results are hard to gauge scientifically though.  After all, there are many factors which may cause men to have sex infrequently, such as disease or libido issues.  These factors can also be linked to heart disease.

As an exercise, sexual activity generally doesn’t create the cardiovascular results that you’d get from a jog around the block.  Studies show that sex only gives 70-8-% of the workout as using a treadmill.  In terms of burning calories, sex only will shed 5 calories a minute – which is about the same as strolling on the golf green.

Researchers have determined that Viagra is safe for ED patients with heart problems.  However, that hasn’t stopped them from putting the precaution on the label to be careful during sex.  If you faint during sex, have chest pain, or symptoms of a cardiovascular event, you should stop havingsex immediately and get medical attention.  It needs to be noted though that you should also get medical attention if you have these symptoms while doing any other physical activity!

Luckily for men with both ED and heart problems, the studies about sex are still in your favor.  Even though sex isn’t as great of a workout as jogging, it still can improve your heart health.  So, why not start using Viagra?  Sex definitely beats jogging when it comes to improving heart health!