Physician Specialist and Cardiology Fellow in Training with the 37 Military Hospital, Wg Cdr Dr Benjamin Toboh has stated that “uncontrolled hypertension when not checked can weaken a person’s penis over time”.

Speaking to the media on Sunday hypertension is a chronic condition of elevated blood pressure, and when a person’s pressure is higher above a certain cut-off point (140/90), then that person is considered hypertensive.

Enumerating other risk factors that cause hypertension, Dr. Toboh said biologically, all males are at a higher risk of developing hypertension.

More so, hypertension is common in male black persons.

“Advancing in age can also trigger hypertension. As we grow older, our pressures tend to increase over time. Other people who also have a genetic predisposition to hypertension, familiar traits, family history, and obesity are at a higher risk of being hypertensive,” Dr. Toboh mentioned.

He, therefore, advised all people to undergo regular checkups for increased or decreased blood pressure.

Explaining how hypertension can cause erectile dysfunction in men, Dr Toboh disclosed that some of the medication for hypertension treatment have the tendency to relax the vessels that allow free pumping of blood into the penis, affecting its erection.

He also discouraged males with high blood pressure from taking sexual performance pills as it can lead to other blood pressure-related complications.

“Most orthodox medications have gone through rigorous testing. These ones that are off-label prescriptions for enhancing male potency, their measurements are not quantifiable and so people take them and they land in trouble,” Dr. Toboh stated.

He was however emphatic that, not all the blood pressure medications cause erectile dysfunctions.

“Some of the hypertension medications do not have an impact on erectile functioning for males. Speak to your health provider if you have issues with previous medications that caused erectile dysfunctions and it will be changed”, he advised.