July 17, 2023 Dr. James D Jablonski

Can Low Testosterone Cause You Erectile Dysfunction?

Testosterone is a vital hormone in men’s body responsible for sexual development and sexual desire.

When your body is unable to make an expected level of testosterone, you experience symptoms like decreased sexual drive.

Also, testosterone plays a crucial role in erectile dysfunction, or an ability to attain and sustain an erection for sexual intercourse.

Your ability to have fulfilling sexual activity reduces automatically when you have low testosterone levels.

Nevertheless, lack of sexual drive and erectile dysfunction are two common sexual problems in men due to low testosterone levels.

Low testosterone and erectile dysfunction

Low testosterone can make you suffer from certain physical, mental, and sexual symptoms.

Some common sexual-related symptoms caused by low testosterone levels include:

• Few unprompted erections
• Low sexual desire
• Few sexual-related erections

It is found that testosterone levels can be responsible for affecting sexual desires in men.

A lack of testosterone might affect your ability to masturbate because you are not able to generate sexual desires.

Remember testosterone also influence erections on two different levels in your body. First, in your central nervous system (CNS).

Testosterone can encourage your CNS to release neurotransmitters like dopamine & oxytocin which aid you to attain erections.

While the second levels involve stimulation of your spinal nerves to cause alterations in blood vessels.

This further help you to achieve and sustain erections firm enough for sexual activity.

In men, testosterone plays a vital role in sexual wishes and helping to attain and maintain an erection.

But remember testosterone is not only a factor that contributes to your sexual activity.

There might be a dose-dependent correlation between your testosterone levels and their impact on ED.

This further means that unless your testosterone levels are too low, you will not experience a lot of sexual changes.

It is necessary to know that men with low testosterone also experience some other chronic medical ailments including:

• Heart disease
• Diabetes mellitus
• High blood pressure

All these medical conditions often make a man suffer from erectile dysfunction as their blood flow & sensation are affected.

Though chronic medical illness doesn’t usually affect your sexual desire as much as low testosterone can. 

Symptoms of low testosterone level in men

When suffering from low testosterone levels, men can experience the following symptoms:

Issues with erections

Low testosterone can cause problems for you to attain or sustain hard erections.

Yet, low testosterone alone is not always the main cause of erectile dysfunction in men.

People with high testosterone levels can find trouble in achieving erections and men with low levels the converse.

Testosterone arouses penile tissues to produce nitric oxide which starts various reactions in body and causes an erection.

When levels of hormones are too low, a man might find difficulty in getting erections required for sexual intercourse.

 Reduction in testicle size

As a man, if you have low testosterone levels, there will be a reduction in size of your testicles.

Also, you will find scrotum softens than usual.

 Difficulty in sleeping

People with low testosterone levels often find trouble falling or staying asleep.

Low testosterone levels are common in men who suffer from sleep apnea disorder.

This serious disorder causes a person to stop breathing temporarily which can further disturb your sleep. 

Decrease in the amount of semen

Semen is fluid that makes up a majority of male ejaculate. This type of fluid aids your sperm to move towards egg.

Testosterone helps in stimulating the production of semen and decreases semen levels, leading to low testosterone levels.

Also, a decrease in the amount of semen can also contribute to fertility problems. 

Changes in your mood or mood swings

Men with low testosterone levels have more chance to suffer from depression, lack of concentration, and irritability.

Testosterone replacement therapy provides you quick relief from depression symptoms and improves quality of life in men with low testosterone. 

How to increase your testosterone levels?

There are several factors that play a crucial role in how much testosterone is produced by body.

These factors mainly include general fitness level according to age, habits, and lifestyle.

Nonetheless, making small changes to your habits and lifestyle can increase testosterone production.

Here are some ways to increase your testosterone levels:

Exercise regularly

Regular physical activity can promote a higher level of testosterone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and luteinizing hormone.

All these support hormones that further help in the production of testosterone in males.

Try exercising regularly or involving in weight training or a combination of different exercise forms.

 Maintain healthy weight

By controlling the hypothalamic-pituitary thyroid axis, obesity can decrease your testosterone levels.