Is Vaping to Blame for Erectile Dysfunction?

Remember a couple years ago, back before we had bigger things to worry about like a viral pandemic, when everyone was really worried about teen vaping? Well, we have bigger public health crises to fry these days, but it turns out vaping is still bad — for your dick, specifically. According to a study published Wednesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, men who use e-cigarettes are more than twice as likely to experience erectile dysfunction than their non-vaping counterparts.

In the study, one of the first to analyze the relationship between vaping and sexual health, researchers studied self-reported data from more than 13,000 men between the ages of aged 20 and older surveyed in the national Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study. Those who reported daily vaping were found to be 2.2 times more likely to report experiencing erectile dysfunction compared to men who never vaped. This trend held regardless of other risk factors associated with erectile dysfunction, with a smaller sample of vapers younger than 65 with normal BMIs and no history of cardiovascular disease proving 2.4 times more likely to experience erectile dysfunction than non-vapers.

Moreover, the researchers behind the study posited that rates of ED (and, for that matter, vaping) may actually be even higher than the study results suggest, noting that some men may be reluctant to report honestly about their real-life rates of both vaping and penis problems.

Ultimately, none of this is terribly surprising. Smoking the old-fashioned way has long been linked to sexual dysfunction in both men and women, and is thought to be related to nicotine’s adverse affects on blood vessel function, which you need in order to do the sex. As it turns out, many newer e-cigarettes have particularly high levels of nicotine, which means — contrary to popular belief — they’re probably pretty much just as bad for you as cigarettes, or at least just as bad for your dick.

The good news is, now that we have a pandemic to worry about instead, people have kind of chilled out about vaping. The worse news is that COVID will probably give you erectile dysfunction too.