Back in May 2021, we brought you news that might have left you feeling deflated: COVID-19 can cause erectile dysfunction (ED). The study we cited, published in May of 2021 in The World Journal of Men's Health, was the first to "demonstrate the presence of the COVID-19 virus in the penis long after the initial infection in humans" and to establish a connection between widespread penile endothelial cell dysfunction from COVID-19 infection and ED.
Well, brace yourselves, because the news hasn't gotten any better. Last week, The University of Minnesota's CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy) reported the results of a brand new study that found that one in five men surveyed suffered from erectile dysfunction up to two years after having COVID-19.
The research was conducted by lead author, Hideaki Kato, who works in the Infection Prevention and Control Department at Yokohama City University Hospital, along with several other co-authors including the COVID-19 Recovery Study II Group. It was published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports, the fifth most-cited journal in the world.
The researchers surveyed 609 men in Japan aged 20 and over (median age 56), one and two years after having a COVID-19 infection. All men had been admitted to a hospital during their acute infection, from March to September 2021. The survey revealed that 19% of the men reported erectile dysfunction one and/or two years after their infection. The researchers posit that this ED could be due depression, physical and psychological stress, anxiety, or sleep disturbances, and conclude that vascular endothelial damage during the acute infection also led to the progression of ED.
CIDRAP provides some highlights from the study:
In total, 116 men (19.0%) reported having ED, including 86 in the 1-year survey, 70 in the 2-year survey, and 40 in both. These participants had higher rates of shortness of breath and fatigue than those without ED and scored higher on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-D (depression) and the EuroQol 5-dimensions for pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression than before infection.
Seventy-nine (68.1%) men said they developed ED within 28 days of COVID-19 infection, and 6 (4.3%) did so 2 to 5 months following infection. Of the 116 men with ED, 29 (25.0%) experienced ED improvement during the study.
Improvement in ED symptoms was noted within 1 month (15 men), 2 months (1), 4 months (1), and 1 year (12). Fifty-seven patients (49.1%) still had ED at 2 years. An exploratory clustering analysis suggested that ED was related to disturbed sleep, while COVID-19 severity, reinfection, vaccination frequency, and antiviral treatment were unrelated.
Here's the study's abstract:
Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) is associated with a wide range of post-acute sequelae. The prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED) that developed after COVID-19 and the associated underlying factors were analyzed based on a questionnaire survey, COVID-19 Recovery Study II in Japan. A case–control study was conducted with those with or without ED one and two years hospitalized with COVID-19 between March and September 2021. Six hundred and nine Japanese men, with a median age of 48 years, were analyzed. During the study period, 116 subjects (19.0%) had erectile dysfunction. The patients with ED responded with less subjective awareness of recovery and high breathless and fatigue scores compared to those without ED. The patients with ED also showed higher Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-D (depression) and the EuroQol 5-dimensions 5-level scores for pain/discomfort and anxiety/depression scores compared before COVID-19 infection. Sleep disturbance was suggested to be associated with erectile dysfunction using an exploratory clustering analysis in the one-year survey. There were no associations of COVID-19 severity, reinfection, vaccination frequency, antiviral treatment for COVID-19 with the presence of erectile dysfunction. It was considered that mental support for the subject with erectile dysfunction as a long-COVID symptom is warranted.
Read the full paper here.
