Association between plasma fluorescent oxidation products and erectile dysfunction: A prospective study.

Shuman Yang,Bruce Bracken,Tianying Wu,Edward Giovannucci,Shuk-Mei Ho

doi:10.1186/s12894-015-0083-9

Abstract

BackgroundExisting epidemiological studies of the association between oxidative stress and erectile dysfunction (ED) are sparse and inconclusive, which is likely due to cross-sectional design and small sample size. Therefore, we investigated the association between biomarkers of oxidative stress and ED in prospective setting among a relatively large sample size of men.MethodsWe conducted the prospective study among 917 men ages between 47 and 80 years at the time of blood draw, which is a part of nested prospective case–control study of prostate cancer in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Plasma fluorescent oxidation products (FlOPs), a global biomarker for oxidative stress, were measured at three excitation/emission wavelengths (360/420 nm named as FlOP_360; 320/420 nm named as FlOP_320 and 400/475 nm named as FlOP_400).ResultsApproximately 35 % of men developed ED during follow-up. We did not find an independent association between FlOP_360, FlOP_320, FlOP_400 and risk of ED in the multivariable adjusted model (Tertile 3 vs. tertile 1: odds ratio [OR] = 0.90, 95 % confidence interval [CI] = 0.61-1.34, Ptrend = 0.54 for FlOP_360; OR = 0.73, 95 % CI = 0.49-1.07, Ptrend = 0.27 for FlOP_320; and OR = 0.98, 95 % CI = 0.66-1.45, Ptrend = 0.72 for FlOP_400). Further analysis of the association between FlOPs and ED in the fasting samples or controls only (free of prostate cancer incidence) did not change the results appreciably.ConclusionsPlasma FlOPs were not associated with the risk of ED, suggesting oxidative stress may not be an independent risk factor for ED.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12894-015-0083-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Existing epidemiological studies of the association between oxidative stress and erectile dysfunction (ED) are sparse and inconclusive, which is likely due to cross-sectional design and small sample size
The proportion of incident ED appeared to be higher among men with higher levels of FlOPs (Table 2), we did not find an independent association between FlOP_360, FlOP_320, FlOP_400 and risk of ED in the multivariable adjusted model (Tertile 3 vs. tertile 1: OR = 0.90, 95 % CI = 0.61-1.34, Ptrend = 0.54 for FlOP_360; OR = 0.73, Table 1 Baseline characteristics according to tertiles of plasma fluorescent oxidation products (FlOPs) (N = 917): prospective analysis in the Health Professional Follow-up Study, 1993-1995
FI = Fluorescent intensity units aRisk factors include age, body mass index, alcohol intake, physical activity, Caucasian, fasting hours, benign prostatic hyperplasia with surgery, history of hypertension, history of diabetes, smoking status, month of blood draw

Summary

Introduction

Existing epidemiological studies of the association between oxidative stress and erectile dysfunction (ED) are sparse and inconclusive, which is likely due to cross-sectional design and small sample size. We investigated the association between biomarkers of oxidative stress and ED in prospective setting among a relatively large sample size of men. The association between oxidative stress and erectile dysfunction (ED) is sparse and inconclusive, which is likely due to cross-sectional design and small sample size. Existing epidemiological studies of the association between oxidative stress and ED either had small sample size (N ≤ 60) or were crosssectional [12,13,14]. We investigated the association between plasma FlOPs and ED in prospective settings among a relatively large sample size of men

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Discussion

Conclusion