Folic acid supplementation improves erectile function in patients with idiopathic vasculogenic erectile dysfunction by lowering peripheral and penile homocysteine plasma levels: a case-control study.

Abstract

Erectile dysfunction (ED) has common risk factors with many cardiovascular (CV) impairments. In view of these facts, hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcys) has been postulated for involvement in endothelial dysfunction. We evaluated peripheral and penile homocysteine (Hcys) plasma levels before and after folic acid supplementation in idiopathic vasculogenic erectile dysfunction (ED) patients. This study included 50 consecutive patients and 50 consecutive healthy controls that were recruited from December 2017 to December 2018. The patients received folic acid (FA) daily for 3months and were evaluated by the abridged 5-item International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) and penile duplex before and after therapy, in addition to plasma Hcys levels. Our study showed improvement in the severity of ED in our patients as all of them became mild to moderate ED after folic acid administration. Additionally, the median scores of IIEF-5 significantly increased from 6 to 14, respectively (p<0.001). Furthermore, the median peripheral and penile Hcys plasma levels (μmol/l) significantly decreased after folic acid administration as 39 patients with moderate ED and 11 patients with severe ED were 0.62, 0.34, 5.37, 0.37, respectively, became mild to moderate ED with their median peripheral and penile Hcys plasma levels became 0.19, 0.15, p<0.001, <0.001, respectively. Peripheral Hcys level correlates significantly with penile Hcys before and after folic acid administration (r: -0.06 p: 0.8, r: 0.9, p<0.001, respectively). Recently, an emerging body of evidence suggests a role for Hcys and folate in erectile function. Interestingly, our interventional study is one of the first that evaluated the effect of folic acid supplementation on HHcys where it demonstrated a significant decrease in peripheral and penile Hcys plasma levels after folic acid administration. Thus, FA should be prescribed concomitantly with phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors in ED patients.