Bigger and Better: How Pfizer Redefined Erectile Dysfunction

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Lexchin examines how Pfizer transformed sildenafil from an effective product for erectile dysfunction due to illness or injury into a drug that healthy men can use to enhance their erections.

Related collections

Most cited references 19

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Impotence and its medical and psychosocial correlates: results of the Massachusetts Male Aging Study.

H Feldman, B I Goldstein, D G Hatzichristou … (1993)

We provide current, normative data on the prevalence of impotence, and its physiological and psychosocial correlates in a general population using results from the Massachusetts Male Aging Study. The Massachusetts Male Aging Study was a community based, random sample observational survey of noninstitutionalized men 40 to 70 years old conducted from 1987 to 1989 in cities and towns near Boston, Massachusetts. Blood samples, physiological measures, socio-demographic variables, psychological indexes, and information on health status, medications, smoking and lifestyle were collected by trained interviewers in the subject's home. A self-administered sexual activity questionnaire was used to characterize erectile potency. The combined prevalence of minimal, moderate and complete impotence was 52%. The prevalence of complete impotence tripled from 5 to 15% between subject ages 40 and 70 years. Subject age was the variable most strongly associated with impotence. After adjustment for age, a higher probability of impotence was directly correlated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, associated medications, and indexes of anger and depression, and inversely correlated with serum dehydroepiandrosterone, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and an index of dominant personality. Cigarette smoking was associated with a greater probability of complete impotence in men with heart disease and hypertension. We conclude that impotence is a major health concern in light of the high prevalence, is strongly associated with age, has multiple determinants, including some risk factors for vascular disease, and may be due partly to modifiable para-aging phenomena.

0 comments Cited 294 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction in a community-based sample of men 50 to 78 years old: prevalence, concern, and relation to sexual activity.

J. Bosch, Linn Groeneveld, S. Thomas … (2001)

To determine the prevalence rates of erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction, associated bother, and their relation to sexual activity in a population-based sample of elderly men.Methods. Data were collected from 1688 men by way of self-administered questionnaires (including the International Continence Society male sex questionnaire) and measurements at a health center and urology outpatient department. The prevalence of significant erectile dysfunction (ie, erections of severely reduced rigidity or no erections) increased from 3% in men 50 to 54 years old to 26% in men 70 to 78 years old. In the same age strata, the prevalence of significant ejaculatory dysfunction (ie, ejaculations with significantly reduced volume or no ejaculations) increased from 3% to 35%. Pain or discomfort during ejaculation was rare (1%) and independent of age. In general, men were more concerned about erectile dysfunction than about ejaculatory dysfunction. However, most men had no or only little concern about their dysfunction. The percentage of men who reported being sexually active declined with increasing age and was lower in men with erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction and in men without a partner. In sexually active men, 17% to 28% had no normal erections, indicating that with advancing age normal erections are not an absolute prerequisite for a sexually active life. Erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction are common in elderly men. The results of this study indicate that these conditions are much less of a problem for older men than previously suggested.

0 comments Cited 24 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Patterns of use of sildenafil among commercially insured adults in the United States: 1998-2002.

T Delate, Luke Simmons, B Motheral (2004)

Sildenafil is increasingly being marketed to younger healthcare consumers. The purpose of this study was to profile sildenafil use in commercially insured, adult beneficiaries. Annual ambulatory prescription claims data from 1998 to 2002, for a nationwide, random sample of over 5 million life-years of commercially insured adults (aged > or =18 y), were examined retrospectively. The overall prevalence of sildenafil use increased from 0.8% (1998) to 1.4% (2002), an 84% increase. While the growth in use slowed in older males, use became more pronounced in younger males and females and decreased in older females. The fastest growing segment of users was found to be males aged 18-45 y. The proportion of users who had two or more claims for a medication that is suspected of inducing erectile dysfunction (ED) and/or a marker for a suspected ED-inducing disease decreased over the study period. Our findings suggest that use may increase among younger male and female patients and those without an underlying etiologic reason for use.

0 comments Cited 13 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): PLoS Med

Journal ID (publisher-id): pmed

Title: PLoS Medicine

Publisher: Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )

ISSN (Print): 1549-1277

ISSN (Electronic): 1549-1676

Publication date (Print): April 2006

Publication date (Electronic): 11 April 2006

Volume: 3

Issue: 4

Electronic Location Identifier: e132

Author notes

Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

Joel Lexchin is at the School of Health Policy and Management, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; the Emergency Department, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. E-mail: jlexchin@ 123456yorku.ca

Article

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030132

PMC ID: 1434483

PubMed ID: 16597172

SO-VID: a493ff01-e21f-44c5-8295-ff350d1c5468

Copyright © Copyright: © 2006 Joel Lexchin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Bigger and Better: How Pfizer Redefined Erectile Dysfunction

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Telemedicine

Most cited references 19

Impotence and its medical and psychosocial correlates: results of the Massachusetts Male Aging Study.

Erectile and ejaculatory dysfunction in a community-based sample of men 50 to 78 years old: prevalence, concern, and relation to sexual activity.

Patterns of use of sildenafil among commercially insured adults in the United States: 1998-2002.

Author and article information

Journal

Author notes

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Cited by 35

Most referenced authors 147