 In China there are all kinds of obscure remedies, both legitimate and illegitimate that are used to treat low libido, that even range from varying kinds of animal penises to all kinds of actually scientifically verified remedies for that. Now in this video I thought I would share not only the cause and the treatment of ED from a biomedical perspective but also from a traditional Chinese medicine perspective because this is a department where there is a lot to offer. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. Now before we jump into this video I've put together two very important links right below the video. The first is for a free guide which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine and the second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine you can contact my private practice and clinic right below this video. Now in regards to what causes erectile dysfunction there are all kinds of different causes for example they can be purely physiological and physical health related, lots of people have cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, they're smokers, they can be psychogenic, it can be basically psychological causes that range from stress to performance anxiety to all kinds of issues but in this video I want to focus on really the physiological concrete medical causes which is really cardiovascular disease in a way. I mean people with erectile dysfunction it's one of the earliest warning signs of peripheral basically vascular issues right poor blood circulation due to something going on in terms of cardiovascular health. Now one of the second issues is really low androgens so sex hormones. Let's jump in here and I want to show you a little bit of a piece of research. So the study is called the link between vasculogenic erectile dysfunction, coronary artery disease and peripheral artery disease and I want to highlight something here where they said under the vascular section results from the Massachusetts male aging study confirm the association of ED with basically this coronary artery issue we talked about. For patients with heart disease a 39% probability of having erectile dysfunction and follow-up studies have shown it can be as high as 75% so 75% of these men have some kind of heart issue or cardiovascular issue that also have erectile dysfunction so there's that strong of a correlation there. Now when it comes to hormones or androgen sex hormones they said direct quote androgen deficiency is a recognized cause for decreased libido and erectile and ejaculatory function. So the number one takeaway here and from my point of view what I see clinically is typically people who have diets that are too high in carbs and they're not exercising enough exercise an hour a day four or five times a week in my experience with a healthy diet like a Mediterranean diet has been one of the fastest ways I've seen my patients non-pharmacologically right with no intervention improve basically libido you know erection strength and that kind of thing so increasing circulation and cardiovascular health. Now what about when it comes to traditional Chinese medicine you know typically we utilize the combination of acupuncture and classical formulas to treat this but from our point of view a very reductionist diagnosis is what's called kidney and liver yin deficiency so we say that the liver stores the blood and the kidney really in terms of physiological processes governs lots of urinary issues governs lots of libido issues and lots of sex hormone functions so very often let's say we have a textbook diagnosis of what's called kidney chi or kidney yang deficiency now in this diagnosis a classic diagnosis would say be a middle-aged man who has urinary issues either nighttime urination a few times a night urinary dribbling some kind of urinary dysfunction has an issue with libido or erections may have changes in sperm count and other secondary symptoms he may have fatigue he may have night sweats may have low back pain or throws at his low back a lot these are sort of textbook kidney chi deficiency symptoms also edema lower leg edema is common but again many people with diabetes or kidney dysfunction will also have lower leg edema discoloration changes in the skin tone dryness or this red patchiness but from our point of view that's sort of the textbook definition now in my experience utilizing formulas in tcm is the most effective way to treat this for sure besides extensive lifestyle change and one formula the most famous studied all over the world is called kidney chi pill shen chi wan now i want to show a little piece of research here that talks about this formula and the effect it had on libido this research paper is called shen chi pill a traditional chinese herbal formula for the treatment of hypertension a systematic review now in this review they looked at a whole bunch of different trials and research papers and one thing i wanted to highlight here was that they said a total of four rcts comparing shen chi pill plus western medicine with western medicine were included shen chi pill is a complementary therapy exhibited a relatively small with no significant reduction on blood pressure but showed a remarkable improvement on sexual function and lipid profile now this was just grabbing the first study i could find there are plenty more on this formula because it's quite famous and it's used all over the world in asia and japan but this formula for example is one of the commonly used ones that we use to treat this overall pattern of what we call kidney chi deficiency but again circulation and blood flow are going to be the king of restoring this picture back to normal function so that is ed west and east or biomedical and more of a traditional point of view again before you guys go i have two other links right below this video that can help the free guide and if you'd like to learn more about becoming a patient that's what i have for you today and i'll see you soon