Once again, that old truism about what’s good for the heart is good for the penis comes into play. Just as your heart needs a strong blood flow to operate optimally, your penis must have a strong blood flow to achieve and maintain an erection.
This means that anything that tends to compromise healthy circulation throughout the body is almost certainly going to have an adverse effect on both cardiac and penile function. And smoking definitely can lead to erectile dysfunction, according to WebMD, which points out that the risk of ED increases based on how much you smoke.
In September 2011 Time magazine reported on a study that involved 65 sexually active male smokers who wanted to kick the habit and were willing to have their erections periodically evaluated in the laboratory. Enrolled in an eight-week smoking cessation program that used nicotine patches to wean them off their habit, 20 of the men reported that they had ED at the start of the study. By the time the program, 15 of these men no longer suffered erectile problems.
