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Health Extracts
New York Times / October 4, 2005m
Serious Riders, Your Bicycle Seat May Affect Your Love Life/strong>
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
A raft of new studies add to earlier evidence that traditional bicycle
seats, the kind with a narrow rear and pointy nose, play a role in sexual
impotence.
Dr. Steven Schrader, a reproductive health at the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, said that it was no longer a question of
"whether or not bicycle riding on a saddle causes erectile dysfunction. The
question is, What are we going to do about it?"
Riders who spend many hours on a bike each week should be concerned and he
suggested that the bicycle industry design safer bicycle seats and stop
trivializing the risks of the existing bicycle seats.
Researchers estimate that 5 percent of men who ride intensively have
developed severe to moderate erectile dysfunction. Many believe the numbers
are much higher because many men keep silent.
The area in question is the perineum, between the external genitals and the
anus. "When you sit on a chair you never put weight on the perineum,"
Dr.
Schrader said. "But when you sit on a bike, you increase pressure on the
perineum" sevenfold.
Dr. Goldstein, professor of urology at Boston University School of Medicine
states that ³the same arteries and nerves engorge the clitoris during sexual
intercourse. Women cyclists have not been studied as much but they probably
suffer the same injuries.²
Today's ergonomic bicycle seats with splits in the back or holes in the
center to relieve pressure on the perineum may make matters worse because
bicycle seats bicycle seats have smaller surface areas, so the rider's
weight presses harder on less seat. The perineum may not escape injury
because its arteries run laterally and they are not directly over the
cutouts and can come under more pressure when they come into contact with
the cutouts' edges.
A 28-year-old who came in for testing, Dr Goldstein said, showed the penile
blood flow of a 60-year-old.
The safest bicycle seats, experts say, force the rider to sit back firmly on
the sit bones so the perineum is protected. Dr. Schrader advocates bicycle
seats that do not have noses.
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