Many physical factors conspire to cause erectile dysfunction or ED. One of those causes is high blood pressure. To understand how hypertension leads to erectile dysfunction (ED), we will have to understand how erections work which really is a complicated process.

When you get an erection, nerve signals from your brain or from the nerve endings in your penis cause the smooth muscle of the chambers to relax and arteries to dilate, or open wider. This allows a rush of blood to fill the empty spaces of the penis. The pressure of blood flow causes the sheath of tissue around the chambers to press on veins that normally drain blood out of the penis. That traps blood in the penis. As more blood flows in, the penis expands and stiffens, and you have an erection. When the excitement ends, the smooth muscle contracts again, taking pressure off the veins and allowing blood to flow back out of the penis. Then the penis returns to a flaccid state. Studies show that high blood pressure is a major cause of erection problems. A study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in 1988 found that about 49% of men aged within 40-79 with high blood pressure had erectile dysfunction. A more recent study of men with high blood pressure, published in the Journal of Urology in 2000, found that 68% of them had some degree of erectile dysfunction. For 45% of the men, it was considered severe. There are many reasons behind why a man with high blood pressure should suffer ED. Causes are discussed below.

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