Men who use phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors may father more children, a genetic study reports. The authors believe this finding could have implications in countries with declining fertility rates and could indicate better subjective well-being among men who could benefit from the drugs. “Further studies are required to confirm this, and we absolutely do not advocate indiscriminate use of PDE5 inhibitors—although relatively rare, PDE5 inhibitors can have harmful adverse effects,” conclude the authors of this Christmas 2023 contribution.
Reduction in diastolic blood pressure was used as a surrogate for PDE5 inhibition by participants of European ancestry with information from the International Consortium for Blood Pressure (n = 757,601). Information in the U.K. Biobank (n = 211 ,840) was used to estimate fertility, sexual behavior, and subjective well-being in male participants. Based on the outcome measures of the number of children fathered, the number of sexual partners, probability of never having had sexual intercourse, and subjective well-being, the study showed: “Genetically proxied PDE5 inhibition was associated with male participants having 0.28 (95% confidence interval 0.16 to 0.39) more children (false discovery rate corrected P <0.001). This association was not identified in female participants. No evidence was found of an association between genetically proxied PDE5 inhibition and number of sexual partners, probability of never having had sexual intercourse, or self-reported wellbeing in male participants.”