be healthy

As a teen, you stockpiled wood. Does your lumber still stack up?

As men age, they need to consider the heart/erection connection. "All health issues have effects on your penis," says Steven Lamm, M.D., an assistant professor at the New York University school of medicine and the author of The Hardness Factor: How to Achieve Your Best Health and Sexual Fitness at Any Age. "A 50-year-old man who is healthy is probably performing as well sexually as an out-of-shape 30-year-old who smokes and drinks."
Dr. Lamm recommends these lifestyle changes to keep your member in good standing after the teenage years.
*Achieve ideal body weight and eliminate the fat around your gut. Abdominal fat blocks the testosterone that should be available to you, which in turn affects sexual functioning. A fat gut is a bad marker for overall health--including your sexual health, says Dr. Lamm.
* Do a cardio workout daily. When you exercise, bloodflow increases--blood rushes through the endothelial cells (the lining of the blood vessels) and stimulates them to make more nitric oxide, a key chemical involved in producing erections. "The healthier a man is, the more nitric oxide he produces, and the harder his erection is," says Dr. Lamm.
* Give up butts. "Absolutely do not smoke--that just clenches down on your blood vessels and prevents them from being reactive," he says. Smoking restricts penile bloodflow and weakens erections, making smokers twice as likely to experience erectile dysfunction.
* Avoid big meals and alcohol before sexual encounters. For optimal sexual performance, give yourself 2 hours between dinner and sex. Would you eat a big meal before playing a full-court basketball game? "If all your blood is going to your gut, it's not going to go to your pelvic area," Dr. Lamm says.
* take supplemental insurance. Pop two omega-3 fatty-acid supplements daily totaling at least 300 milligrams (mg) of DHA and 400 mg of EPA as a kind of insurance policy on your heart and penis health. And consider taking the antioxidants pycnogenol (80 mg) and L-arginine (3 grams) daily. They'll shield your endothelium from harm and facilitate the use of nitric oxide.