I read an article titled Diabetes-related blindness rampant in Kigali BY ALPHONSE RUTAZIGWA in last Saturday’s The New Times newspaper and was inspired to write on another most life-stressing consequence of diabetes, beside the well known heart disease and stroke.

Though there are other complications of diabetes which include blindness, kidney disease, and amputations, I would like to share with readers on this impotence complication.

Millions of men suffer from impotence, and it is more common among men with diabetes than others. While it is estimated that 15-25% of men experience erectile dysfunction by the age of 65, it has been reported to affect 50-60% of men with diabetes over the age of 50.

How is diabetes related to impotence?

The most common cause of impotence in men with diabetes is damage to their nervous system. Nerves carry messages back and forth between the brain and other parts of the body. All of your nerves together make up the nervous system.

Some nerves tell the brain what is happening in the body. For example, when you step on a tack or pin, the nerve in your foot tells the brain about the pain, whereas other nerves tell the body what to do.

For example, nerves from the brain tell your stomach when it is time to move food into your intestines. The nervous system has four main parts: cranial, central, peripheral, and autonomic.

All these nerves go to different organs of your body. Autonomic nerves go from your spinal cord to your lungs, heart, stomach, intestines, bladder, and sex organs.

Diabetes can damage the peripheral, autonomic, and cranial nerves. Having high blood glucose for many years can damage the blood vessels that bring oxygen to some nerves.

High blood glucose can also hurt the covering on the nerves with the result of damaged nerves stopping to send messages and or they may send messages too slowly or at the wrong times.

Diabetic neuropathy is the medical term for damage to the nervous system from diabetes. As autonomic nerves go to the male parts, damage to these nerves can prevent a man’s organ from getting firm when he wants to have sex.

This condition is called erectile dysfunction or impotence. Many men who have had diabetes for many years experience this. That is why people with diabetes especially men should try to get earlier treatment and must follow their doctors’ advice so that one can avoid impotence related to diabetes.

People at risk of getting the disease drop by an overwhelming 60 percent if they manage to lose just 10 pounds by following a healthy diet and engage in regular exercise such as walking, and other exercises.

Researchers have reported strength training to cause a 23% increase in glucose uptake after just four months. Because poor glucose metabolism is associated with adult onset of diabetes, improved glucose metabolism is an important benefit of regular strength exercise.

Nowadays you do not have to live in a fitness center to put on functional muscles; short high intensity sessions performed once a week is all that is required to improve glucose metabolism and lose weight.

The two main components of this technique are the intensity of the exercise and the recovery after the exercise. Infrequent, short, high intensity weight training sessions, followed by the required amount of time to recover and become stronger is what is needed to increase functional lean muscle and improve glucose metabolism.

When you do enough exercise fat is burned from the body when cells oxidises to release energy in the form of exercise. When the exercise is done slowly to moderately then the majority of energy is taken from the fat stores, hence avoiding accumulation of glucose that may lead you to impairment of your love relation.

Small frequent meals should be consumed during the day, each containing a little protein to maintain muscle and energy levels. Foods with vital vitamin and mineral supplements should also be taken on a daily basis.

As before, get the calories from high quality food but if you can’t, utilise a blender to make mixtures from locally available milk with whatever additives you want to use, as long as you keep count of the calories for your daily total.

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