You knew cigarettes were bad for your health. Did you know they also muck up your sex life?
Seattle
HIVer Eric Bray was aware that smoking and HIV are a combustible mix:
Cigarettes speed the development of many cancers and infections. Yet
Bray couldn’t quit. Once, after stopping, “I broke down and went to buy
a pack,” he says. “At the store, I saw a man in a wheelchair with an
oxygen tank—buying cigs. ‘It’s a message from God,’ I thought. That was
six years ago—I haven’t smoked since.”
Should he be tempted,
here’s an antidote: A study found that some 120,000 British men are
impotent from puffing and that smoking makes a gent 50% likelier to
develop erectile dysfunction when he hits middle age.
Also to
consider: Smoking makes you three times as likely to get wrinkles.
Shriveled, stinky, can’t get it up—sounds sexy! A British
government-funded campaign encourages quitting with eye-popping images
like the one above.
Your doc can help, too—with support
groups, nicotine patches and scripts. Or call the American Cancer
Society (800.ACS.2345) for aid in waiting to exhale.
