Men who regularly take painkillers for arthritis and other painful conditions may double their chances of suffering from impotence.

This startling discovery was made by researchers at the University of Tampere in Finland who said that daily doses of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that are used by millions of people all over the world can cause erectile dysfunction or impotence. This is true for the elderly and middle-aged men.

Impotence has long plagued arthritis sufferers but scientists thought this was caused by the disease itself. Now they know better. Researchers identified the suspect NSAIDs as ibuprofen, aspirin, and naproxen. These drugs are traditionally prescribed to treat pain, fever, and inflammation while ibuprofen is a popular over-the-counter drug.

The

use of these drugs increases the risk of erectile dysfunction. Arthritis itself has only a small effect, according to lead researcher Dr. Rahman Shiri.

In their study published in The Journal of Urology, researchers looked at 1,126 men aged 50 to 70 who were asked to report their use of painkilling drugs over a five year period. Regular NSAID users were often found to have problems with their sex lives as opposed to those who rarely or never used the said drugs.

The number of cases of impotence was 97 per 1,000 in men using NSAIDs, and 52 per 1,000 in men not using them. It is not clear how the drugs may damage a man’s sexual performance,

and the study does not identify the doses of painkillers used by men, reported Jenny Hope in the Daily Mail.

A recent victim of the painkiller impotence connection is popular radio talk show host and political commentator Rush Limbaugh, a self-described conservative who has repeatedly condemned illegal drug use and insists that those convicted of drug crimes should be jailed.

“Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. … And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up,” Limbaugh said on his short-lived

television show on October 5, 1995.

Ironically, the man who speaks to over 13 million listeners on radio admitted in 2003 that he was addicted to prescription painkillers. He said his addiction was due to years of severe back pain made worse by a botched surgery intended to correct the problem. Last year, Limbaugh was detained for over three hours for carrying a bottle of Viagra at Palm Beach International Airport. He had just returned from a vacation in the Dominican Republic when authorities found the little blue pills in his luggage. His name was not on the prescription.

Despite this and other sad stories, Dr. John Dean, a specialist in sexual medicine at the Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, urged

patients not to stop taking their medicines without first consulting a doctor. These results cannot be dismissed but they come from relatively small numbers of patients. We should now be conducting more research, he said.

Impotence is certainly an embarrassing problem and most men are ashamed to talk about it. But that doesn t mean it s the end of the word. The condition can be treated and numerous treatment options exist. One of them is Erectasil, a topical lotion that works on the source of impotence and doesn t have any harmful side effects. When used as directed, this product can help men stand out. For details, go to http://erectasil.com.

Jill Stewart is a health and fitness

enthusiast and published author. Many of her insightful articles can be found at the premier online health news magazine http://www.healthnfitnesszone.com