Vitamins & Minerals

Objective: The impact of vitamin D (VD) insufficiency on erectile function is still not evaluated comprehensively, although, Vitamin D deficiency is recently introduced as one of the important risk factors related to cardiovascular disease (CVD), which share many common underlying mechanisms with Erectile dysfunction (ED). This study sought to evaluate the relation between vasculogenic (ED) and serum vitamin D.

Materials and methods: A comparative case-control study was conducted at Al-Hussein university hospital in Cairo, during the period of January 2016 and December 2016, 40 patients suffering from ED and 40 healthy agematched controls were evaluated clinically and by sonography using the international index of erectile function (IIEF-5) questionnaire and penile duplex ultrasound. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] level was measured in both groups.

Results: Most of ED cases (72.5%) lie in the categories of either obvious deficiency or suboptimal levels of VD; conversely, none of the control group lies in such categories. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] was significantly decreased in ED patients compared to normal controls (26 ± 17 vs. 58 ± 16 ng/ml respectively, p value<0.01). This decrease in levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] in patients with ED was not related to its underlying vascular cause, whether arteriogenic or venogenic (p value=0.43).

Conclusion: This research demonstrates a significant association between VD deficiency and vasculogenic erectile dysfunction regardless its type. This association may be attributed to the negative impact of VD deficiency on ED risk factor.