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One of the most common disorders of men in the United States is erectile dysfunction. Impotence or erectile dysfunction (ED) is the inability to attain an erection that is rigid enough for sexual penetration. Many people have confused Impotence with a loss of sexual urges or the absence of orgasms, but these disorders don’t necessarily imply that the man can’t get an erection. In the United States, between 10 and 20 million men suffer from some type of erectile dysfunction. This occurrence increases with age. Less than one percent of men under age 30 have ED, but between the ages of 40 and 70, nearly half of all men have some type of erection disorder. There are various causes of impotence. In primary impotence, the penis itself is faulty, but in secondary impotence, it may be caused by psychological problems and side effects from drugs. Some psychological problems with erections may be a lack of confidence, loss of attraction to his mate, or maybe just from a feeling of depression. During a normal functioning erection, the brain sends a message to the corpus cavernosum to restrict the exporting of blood and to increase the import of blood into the penis. This causes the penis to fill up with blood and an erection occurs until the sensation is over. When erectile dysfunction is apparent, these vessels are not properly filling with blood. This is usually because the vessels are not restricting enough blood. The erect penis needs about 5 to 6 times the normal amount of blood to reach complete erectness.
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