Just about everyone knows that being obese raises your risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, lung disease, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and a host of other serious health problems. Unfortunately, the risk of death isn’t always enough to get guys to change their habits. But when our sex lives are endangered, well, that’s something to pay attention to.
Researchers at New York’s city’s New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center studied more than 400 men–37.5 percent had a waist circumference of less than 36 inches, about a third had a waistline between 36 and 40 inches, and 29 percent had waists larger than 40 inches.
The good news is that losing weight (and inches around the belly) had immediate positive effects: Only half the men in the 36-40-inch group had erection problems and 40 percent had ejaculation issues. And of the skinniest guys, only a third had erectile dysfunction and 21 percent had trouble ejaculating.
But wait, there’s more. Forty percent of guys with the largest waists were urinating more than 8 times in a 24-hour period. That was true for about a quarter of the midsize group and only 16 percent of the trimmest men.
The bottom line: If you’re overweight, talk to your doctor and get yourself on an exercise and diet program. According to the researchers, reducing your waistline by just 2.5 inches would lead to a huge improvement in problems in the bedroom—and the bathroom.
