#TheGameChangers and #Erectiledysfunction
Thanks to Chris Evans on the Virgin Radio Breakfast Show I was enlightened on the trending film “The Game Changers”. I now know that everyone is talking about it, but being a studious, busy, mother of two and running a business I was not aware of it. I don’t tend to ‘hangout’ much with a crowd that are really ‘trending’, as it were. You can probably already gather this through my written language. So, much to my husband’s dismay, after a great ‘kids dinner’ out with friends (he had the gourmet beef burger, I had a salmon risotto) we sat down to watch a Saturday night movie and I encouraged us to watch ‘The Game Changers’. Now I am not a film buff or critic but I genuinely thought it was really well filmed and produced and kept the audience – Paul and I – really engaged. Paul, being male age 30+ was the target audience. I however was personally fascinated by their discussion and experiment on Nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) - night time erections! No, not what you are thinking! I am a pelvic health physiotherapist and I have been involved in erectile rehabilitation (erectile dysfunction – ED) and prostate cancer rehabilitation for over 10 years. I am aware of a lot of evidence, but this was new to me – well new in the sense of being so convincingly scientifically true.
The NPT test the Film did was to ask 3 athletes to eat a meat meal and then go to sleep with a special penis electrode on. This special penis electrode measured and recorded the girth and duration of night-time erections (I think). Then they had a vega*(tarian) meal (the reason for the brackets is I cannot recall if the Directors were specific here) and then had their NPT recorded overnight. The results were astonishing! There was a ‘visibly significant’ difference in girth of erection and duration of erection. The Doctor in the film did specify that this was an interesting finding and had yet to be substantiated with research. But, it got me thinking how interesting and potentially clinically significant this information could be for men with ED (or any man wishing to avoid ED!) and whether this could influence recovery following a radical prostatectomy (although mostly ED here is a neural not a vascular issue).
So being the studious individual that I am, in the 2 hours spare that I had this weekend, after dropping one son off to a party, I rushed to the beach to get in a unique opportunity to have a surf! And as such it’s now 2355 and I am sitting down to find the answers to my questions – has this experiment been reported on? What genuine scientific evidence is there for this experimental statement. And what is the potential impact on men post prostatectomy with ED related to neural damage?
This is of course no Cochrane review, far from it. I had a quick glance on Google Scholar (my go to platform now I’m not currently linked to a University) with the key words: erect* AND veg* diet. There was no specific information on erections but as I scrolled down there were some systematic reviews on the prostate cancer and diet. I fell down a rabbit hole and came up with some nice information, but I’ll come back to that.
On the topic still of ED I wanted more... I searched for keywords nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) AND diet. This came up with diet pill issues resulting in ED, not what I was after. So, I refined it slightly to: nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) AND Veg* diet, and still came up with nothing. Nothing specific to the experiment in the film that is. There were of course plenty of articles on the usual suspects – follow a Mediterranean diet, partake in regular exercise, stop smoking, recreational drugs (some prescribed drugs) and reduce alcohol intake – oh and of course, reduce stress! But nothing on NPT or ED AND vega* (vegan or vegetarian) diet.
This was disappointing as the film was good to watch but evidently strongly suggests something for which there is as yet no proven scientific rigour for, nor even a published case study. Now, as I have stated, this is a blog post, not a Cochrane review, and I did do a brief 20 minute hunt on Google Scholar so arguably my methods are just as dubious but it highlights our need to ensure that we do not take all we see and read at face value.
What I did find that was interesting and scientifically robust and proven was…
the links between diet and prostate cancer.
I will write more on this another time but for now what I can say it that what does seem to have been established is that there is a significant association between certain biomechanical markers and a reduction in risk of getting and / or progression of prostate cancer. Specifically, that a majority plant-based diet, high in cruciferous vegetables could be significantly beneficial for men who have had prostate cancer and for all men wishing to avoid it.
Thanks for your engagement. Alex x
Livingston et al., (2019) Plant Bioactives and the Prevention of Prostate Cancer: Evidence from Human Studies, Nutrients, 11(9), 2245; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11092245
