This post about grape seed extract and erectile dysfunction
was written by guest author, Jason Brick.
The trouble with getting advice on grape seed extract and ED
is most of the information comes from one of two problematic
sources.
On one hand, you have the established medical community…
Who are more interested in profiting from treating your problem, which is motivation at odds with actually curing it.
On the other, you have the herbal medicine community.
Their hearts are in the right place, but their information is often so scattered it’s hard to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t.
To help with that second point, we’re going to take a look at the research behind grape seed extract.
Does it work? If so, how well and why?
And what’s the best way to leverage its qualities for longer, better erections and a better sex life.
Let’s take a look…
Grape Seed Extract Boosts Nitric Oxide
Vasodilation is one of the most important mechanics in getting and keeping your erections.
It means widening (dilation) of your blood vessels, in this case to add mass and rigidity to the tissues in your penis.
No vasodilation, no erections.
Nitric Oxide (NO) is one of the main chemicals that stimulates vasodilation in your penis and elsewhere, and numerous studies have linked reduced NO production with erectile dysfunction.
A 2010 study at the Chinese General Hospital of PLA in Beijing dosed subjects with grape seed extract and examined the production of NO at regular intervals.
They found grape seed extract treatment not only increased NO production, but larger doses produced larger increases with no upper limit found within the bounds of the study.
The implications are very clear: grape seed extract directly impacts the human body’s production of NO, meaning that any erectile dysfunction caused by an NO deficiency can be helped by grape seed extract.
As a bonus, improved vasodilation has other heart-related health benefits. ..
A study by Indika Edirisinghe of UC Davis linked grape seed extract to reduced blood pressure in patients who otherwise required treatment with BP lowering drugs (source).
The mechanics behind this are easy to understand…
Blood flowing through wider vessels moves at lower pressure, so more NO (which improves vasodilation) means lower blood pressure.
As regular readers of this blog know, better heart and circulatory health means better erectile and sexual health, since your boners rely on good blood flow for that to happen.
Plus, your risk of heart attack and heart disease goes down with better blood pressure so you’ll get to enjoy those healthy erections longer than you would otherwise.
Grape Seed Prevents Hardening of the Arteries
Hardened arteries happen when calcium, cholesterol and other matter accumulate on the inside the walls of the arteries.
This patchwork of material is less elastic than the tissues of your blood vessels, which makes expansion and contraction of your arteries slower, more difficult, and more dangerous.
At the worst levels, hardened arteries can cause strokes and heart attacks as the compromised vessels prevent proper blood flow.
Even at early and moderate stages, that lack of elasticity in the blood vessels around your penis can make your erections slower to come, softer in the middle, and quicker to go away.
In 2005, Israeli researchers presented findings from their study at a conference in experimental biology.
They had given powders and juices containing grape seed extract to mice, which reduced artery lesions in the rodents by 41 percent as compared to a control group.
Other researchers at the same presentation presented similar evidence.
Nine years later, American researchers gave 200 mg daily of grape seed extract to 13 male smokers, finding that eight weeks of such dosage reduced cholesterol plaque accumulation on arterial walls, and prevented additional cholesterol from adhering to the blood vessels.
As with the NO findings we just talked about, this is a double health whammy for many people suffering from erectile dysfunction.
The improved elasticity in your blood vessels will make it easier to get and keep erections. The better heart health from less cholesterol plaque will keep you alive to enjoy those erections longer.
Grape Seed Extract is an Aromatase Inhibitor
Aromatase is an important agent in your body’s chemistry that converts testosterone into estrogen, in humans and other mammals.
Although a balanced level of estrogen is vital to your health, too much estrogen can cause a host of sexual and gender-related problems including…
Man-boobs, feminine weight distribution, lack of energy, low motivation and you guessed it…erectile dysfunction.
In 2006, Dr. Kijima of the Beckman Research Institute in Duarte, California found that grape seed extract inhibited the uptake of aromatase in breast cancer patients (source).
Though this research was intended to help discover more effective treatments for breast cancer (aromatase is more present in patients with breast cancer), the implications for other health issues centered around aromatase were clear.
This was confirmed by earlier research in 2003 by Dr. Eng, also of Beckman Research Institute, who came to the exact same conclusions.
Further research found that two molecules in grape seed extract were the agents responsible for its aromatase blocking action.
Proanthocyanidin and procyanidin both block the uptake of aromatase, by directly preventing your body from processing and responding to it, resulting in less testosterone to estrogen conversion (source).
And more testosterone and less estrogen equals better sexual health in males who aren’t deficient in estrogen in the first place, which very few are.
Grape Seed Extract and Erectile Dysfunction – Conclusion
Unlike other erection supplements we’ve discussed on this blog, grape seed extract is not a “one stop shopping” option to cure all of your erectile woes.
However, if your erectile dysfunction comes from circulatory problems, it can help fix the mechanical problems behind it. Similarly, ED caused by lowered testosterone or increased estrogen can also get help from good old grape seed extract.
You can get the stuff in various pills and powders, and I recommend starting with 100 mg daily.
Try it for a month and see what happens, if necessary increasing your dosage to 200mg. Since it comes from grapes, you need to take a lot of it before seeing any real side effects, so it’s okay to go trial-and-error with this supplement.
