【The relation between MDMA and ED】

MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is a synthetic narcotic which is known as Ecstasy. It is an illegal drug and it is said that there are many users because it is convenient and available in tablet form. When Manabu Oshio was arrested for drug use (MDMA), it attracted many people’s attention in Japan. MDMA’s characteristic is a euphoric effect. It seems to be often used when having sex because of the euphorigenic effect and ease of access. However, the use of MDMA could cause various side effects, such as an arrhythmia and the renal insufficiency and so on. People are more likely to think that it is a sex drug but how will it’s influence on the actual sexual function to be like? There was a paper which was titled “Sexual dysfunction in men who abuse illicit drugs a preliminary report” and this was posted in the magazine which was called “The Journal of Sexual Medicine” in 2009. In this paper, the researchers investigated the influence to the male dysfunction caused by specifically heroin, amphetamine (stimulant) and MDMA in addition to illegal medicine in general. As a result, after examining 701 drug abusers (average age of 35.4 years), 36.4% of these illegal drug abusers was actually suffering from ED. Moreover, heroin was the most likely to develop ED followed by amphetamine and MDMA. As for the sexual desires, these were decreased in 38.6% of cases and heroin showed the most decrease. On the other hand, it was increased in 18.4% of cases by amphetamine which was the most. Considering the overall tendency, contrary to expectations, it seems that the drug abuser is more likely to get decreased sexual desires. As for the time until ejaculation, it took longer in 49.9% of cases, and shorter in 14.3% of cases.
Putting all these results together, it seems that the drug tends to decrease the sexual desires unexpectedly, and increase the possibility to develop ED, and this is especially high in heroin abusers. As for the time to ejaculation, it seems slightly longer among the illegal drug abuser. However, there are some papers from overseas which pointed out that there are the cases where the drug abuser (MDMA and so on) is using ED curatives such as Viagra at the same time.
ED is a disease which needs a treatment, but there is no excuse in the case of developing ED because of the illegal drug usage. It is strange to take ED curative in order to treat ED due to illegal drug. There is a possibility to compromise the safety of the ED curative which should be safe enough by the illegal drug use. There may be some people who are using those illegal drugs and ED curatives at the same time even in Japan. However this should be stopped, because it is very dangerous. We never know how much active ingredient is contained in the illegal drugs. Moreover, it often contains impurities, toxic substances and so on. Even in the same size MDMA tablet, there is a possibility that the contents are completely different. In other words, there is no way to judge appropriate dosage by yourself. Even if taking 5 MDMA tablets the last time was ok, they may contain 3 times more of the active substance the next time….. There is always a possibility of over dosage. Anyway, the most important thing is not to get involved with illegal drugs, ever.

【Supervisor of this article】

Ken Takemori, MD. An anesthesiologist and Director of Shibuya 3rd Block Clinic.