There are many reasons for high cholesterol, but no matter what the cause is, we should control our diet to lower cholesterol to prevent high cholesterol from affecting your sex life.

This article will introduce the impact of cholesterol on the human body and sexual function of men and women, such as erectile dysfunction and vaginal dryness, and provide suggestions for lowering cholesterol to help you find a happy “sexual” life.

What are the effects of high cholesterol?

Too much cholesterol in the blood can cause hypercholesterolemia, a type of hyperlipidemia, and poses many serious risks to your health, including heart disease, peripheral artery disease, and Strokes, most of which are caused by atherosclerosis, a disease that blocks arteries.

There are usually no symptoms of high cholesterol, so the only way to determine your cholesterol level is through a blood lipid test (or cholesterol test) to obtain your cholesterol level.

However, one of the causes of high cholesterol is family inheritance, so genes also play a large role in this symptom. However, in addition to innate factors, one should not forget that each person’s cholesterol index is actually greatly affected by lifestyle habits, such as exercise frequency, eating habits, weight, etc.

The connection between high cholesterol and sex life

Excessive cholesterol blocks blood circulation and affects male erectile function
In addition to the health conditions mentioned above, reduced blood flow caused by excessive cholesterol is also related to sexual dysfunction, especially affecting the quality of male erections.

Generally speaking, most cases of erectile dysfunction (Erectile dysfunction) are caused by reduced blood flow to the penis. Therefore, drugs used to treat erectile dysfunction cause the smooth muscle cells in the blood vessels to relax, allowing blood to flow more easily.

We know that the reason why high cholesterol is closely related to coronary heart disease is that high cholesterol can promote the accumulation of fatty plaque in blood vessels, narrowing the diameter of the blood vessels and affecting blood circulation.

This is why low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is called bad cholesterol, because bad cholesterol clots along the inside of arteries, and these plaques on the walls of blood vessels block blood flow, like The same dirt that blocks the flow of water on the inner walls of water pipes.

This atherosclerosis may not only occur in the coronary arteries of the heart, but may also affect blood vessels elsewhere in the body, causing blockage of peripheral arteries. Studies have also found that patients with coronary heart disease have a higher risk of impotence than the general population.

Excessive cholesterol may increase the risk of vaginal dryness in women

Contrary to many people’s expectations, women may also be affected by high cholesterol that affects sexual function.

According to a study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2016, researchers counted the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides of 466 women aged 42 to 58 years old.

The results showed that women with abnormal (high) blood lipids have lower sexual satisfaction. This may be because their vaginal lubrication function is reduced during sexual intercourse, causing pain, or the number of orgasms is reduced.

In fact, not only the penis needs to be sufficiently congested, but if the female genitals are not congested enough, the lubricating fluid secreted by the sexual organs will also be reduced, resulting in pain during sexual intercourse, and thus a decrease in sexual desire.

How to improve high cholesterol?

If you find after testing that your cholesterol level exceeds the standard, you can try to improve it through the following methods:

1. Eat less foods high in cholesterol and saturated fat
   
2. Cooking oils are mainly unsaturated fatty acid oils such as olive oil.
   
3. Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day
   
4. quit smoking
   
5. Eat more dietary fiber

​

​