Bicycle Seats & Erectile Disfunction

The most recent available survey, for 2002, reports that 57 million Americans rode a bicycle at least once during the year. An earlier survey reported the total miles biked exceeded 3 billion for a total of 9 million daily bicycle trips. The New York Times reports that as bicycling has become more popular, injuries and accidents have increased in even greater proportion.

Cycling and Erectile Disfunction: Myth or Fact?

• One particular injury or condition of particular concern to men and associated with cycling, erectile dysfunction---the inability to achieve and maintain an erection---has received particular media attention. An online search indicates about 152,000 articles on the subject. But some uncertainty remains. Does cycling really cause erectile dysfunction?

Urologists Argue that Cycling Causes Erectile Dysfunction

• A 2005 "New York Times" article summarized the considerable evidence that cycling does cause erectile dysfunction. Following up on the alarm first sounded by Boston urologist Dr. Irwin Goldstein in 1997, Dr. Steven Schrader said we should stop asking whether cycling causes erectile dysfunction---it clearly does, he said, and cited Boston University and other research to prove the point---and start asking what to do about it. Even bicycle trade groups said they "were aware of the issue" and were developing new seat designs to minimize the problem.

A Provocative Statistic

• One research study cited in the "New York Times" article concluded that "5 percent of men who ride bikes intensively have developed severe to moderate erectile dysfunction as a result."

A Critic Gives the Statistic a Twist

• Th 5 percent statistic, at first alarming, has been given an interesting twist by critics of the connection between cycling and erectile dysfunction. Charles McCorkell's 1999 address to the NYU Medical Center Urology Conference expressed the contrary idea succinctly: If you graph the impotency rates of cyclists against a well-known study of male aging (McCorkell cited the Massachusetts Male Aging Study) you will conclude that the incidence of "severe impotence" was three times higher in the general population than among cyclists. In other words, cycling not only doesn't cause erectile dysfunction, it prevents it.

Cycling Can Cause Erectile Dysfunction

• Many blog entries and cycling websites still doubt or minimize the connection, but, significantly, medical articles generally support it. A 2002 University of San Diego study concluded that hard bicycle seats contributed to "perineal numbness" associated with impotence and concluded further that changing to a softer gel-filled seat could eliminate the problem. Note that McCorkell, although he gave a convincing talk at the urological conference, has a retail bicycle business and no medical training.