Heart disease is the big killer in the US. According to the American Heart Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while the overall death rate is falling slightly (sorry, all that means is people are living longer), the leading cause of death is cardiovascular disease. Put into numbers, it carries off about one-third of us every year. And this is despite all those wonderful drugs to treat high blood pressure, lower those cholesterol levels and keep the heart beating at a steady pace (that’s before they plug in one of those battery-driven pacemakers). However you try and square the circle, we are killing our hearts by refusing to quit smoking, eating too many fatty foods and refusing to exercise. So why drag all these depressing facts in here? Well, the good news for all men is a little known biological fact.

The first symptom of heart disease is a hardening of the arteries. This disease is called atherosclerosis. With high levels of cholesterol in the blood, you get a slow deposit of platelets on the walls of the blood vessels. These harden and gradually obstruct the flow of blood. They also prevent the muscle walls from dilating and contracting. In the early years, the only sign may be a slight increase in blood pressure. But here we come to our little known fact. The artery feeding blood into the penis is one of the smallest in the male body. Who would have thought it. All that blood flowing into the penis to make the erection hard, yet flowing through the smallest artery in the body.

That means the first clear symptom of atherosclerosis is going to be erectile dysfunction. If the muscles walls of the penile artery do not dilate and only permit a slow flow of blood into the penis, any erection that forms is going to be soft. That means you will immediately be treated as a potential heart patient every time you walk into a doctor’s surgery and admit erectile dysfunction. The figures actually show erectile dysfunction appears between two and five years before a stroke or “cardiac event” – a wonderful phrase meaning your heart stopped beating or beat in a way that prevented the blood from supplying oxygen where it was needed.

Now that the online pharmacies are open for business, men have gone back into their closets and refuse to admit their erectile dysfunction to the world. This is very bad news. Cialis is a wonderful drug and will cure most of the early stages of erectile dysfunction caused by atherosclerosis. But there will come a point when the artery will not dilate at all and erections will fail. Cialis is not a treatment for atherosclerosis. Remember those numbers. When the erectile dysfunction really becomes noticeable, you have between 2 and 5 years before the first cardiac event. Your life can be saved if you have early preventative treatment. The drugs required are worth every cent. If you need surgery, say for a stent, the new techniques are fast, safe and do not require your chest opened from top to bottom. Don’t die tomorrow. Avoid heart disease, buy Cialis and enjoy the rest of a long, healthy life with lots of sex.

When you start talking about China, you immediate run into massive numbers. It’s hard to imagine it, but the country is edging up to 1.4 billion people. And that’s despite the one-child policy. You remember that. After WWII, the Chinese thought a big population was a good thing but, when the Government saw how difficult it was to feed everyone, they decided big was no longer beautiful and enforced a law limiting each family to one child. This has produced two interesting outcomes. Couples forgot to register the birth of girls, but were proud to announce the arrival of a boy. This has produced an unbalanced population with about 4% more men than women. Many aging families now have no filial children to look after them. Perhaps more importantly, despite the abandonment of the policy, modern couples are no longer planning families. That’s allowing for the fact that, with a shortage of women, there are fewer couples anyway.

Why should this matter? Well, as time passes and the population ages, there will be fewer people around to produce the children to keep China going. Then along comes even more exciting news. According to a research project undertaken by Peking University People’s Hospital, slightly more than 25% of Chinese men currently suffer from erectile dysfunction. OK let’s put this in context. Allowing for a reasonable proportion of these men not being in relationships, or being too old to have children, that’s millions of men who are unable to get their wives pregnant. Now put aside all the old Cold War thinking that, if the US just sits still, China will collapse during the next century and the US will maintain its supremacy. If society begins to break down, there’s no guarantee this will be a peaceful process. Anyway, by the time the Chinese demographic time bomb strikes, the US will be controlled by the majority Latino, Asian and African American population. Their foreign policy may be rather different to the current caucasian view of the world. As an aside, we should note the current birth rate among the white population is falling rapidly with some 18% of adult US males reporting erectile dysfunction.

The Chinese research is based on detailed surveys in eleven major population centers with more than 40% of men over the age of 40 admitting problems. For the majority, this was psychological rather than physical. The main problem now that it’s legal to produce more children is the refusal of men to seek treatment. They quietly ask the Traditional Chinese Medicine shops for more powdered horns and the penises of powerful animals like the tiger. This is not reversing the slowing population trend. Sadly, Cialis is not yet enjoying the major market penetration achieved in the West where men talk more openly about their sexual problems. A little Cialis might at least boost the enjoyment of sex even if no more children are born. A survey in 2009 had China almost the bottom Asian country for sex life satisfaction. As it stands, no one is having any fun over there. Yet before we get all patronizing over their failings, don’t forget how many US men are failing to get erect on demand. For all Cialis has been boosting performance since 2003, it seems 18% of US men still refuse to try it.

Some people are driven because they are so good, they can earn a living playing sport, dancing or in some other profession based on the ability to move in particular ways. Others are just driven. They know they will never be a top player, but they always want to do the best they can. Whatever the motive, there’s a constant cycle of practice and rehearsal. You can see these people in the gyms and endlessly working through routines to improve their strength or swing, to build up power in the hips and knees, etc. Whatever the required skill, there are repetitive exercises to groove the movement until it becomes an automatic, unthinking response when playing or performing. Except there’s a danger. It’s called an overuse injury. The more you use the same muscle groups, the greater the risk of muscle fatigue and injury. Ask any racquet player or a pitcher about tendonitis in the elbow and you will see the constant fear of an injury that could cut short a career.

In the merely good player, psychological adjustments can be made. It will be painful to take a long rest or, in the worst cases, to stop playing altogether. But it’s not the end of the world – well not completely the end of the world. In the younger player, it can be devastating. Take someone in high school. They are being groomed for the professional ranks. Perhaps this will take them through university on a sports scholarship. Either way, an injury is going to derail the future. Suppose you have a young pitcher. Scouts have already seen him play. Nods of approval have been exchanged. Then tendonitis strikes. In a perfect world, he would take at least a month off. And even when the doctor approves the resumption of training, this would be light and there would be no pitching at full power until the recovery was complete. Except that’s not how it works. To give himself the best chance of being in the first draft or in that scholarship program, he needs results. So, after a week or so, he’s back pitching. He plays through the pain for the greater gain. But there’s a risk. He can fracture his elbow. It’s the same with basketball and volleyball injuries to the knees. Why does this happen? Because, in younger players, the muscles can be stronger than the immature bones. If teens try too hard, they can literally break their bones.

The moral of this article is therefore clear. If you are injured because of an overuse of specific muscle groups, stop playing. You need complete rest, often with the support of a muscle relaxant like Carisoprodol. The essential first step is acceptance. This is not giving up on the future. In fact, it’s preserving your body for the future. With Carisoprodol to relax the muscles and give you the chance to start healing, physical therapy can slowly build you back up to where you were before. But this takes time. It’s not going to help you to push too hard. This is the quickest way to aggravate the injury and set you back weeks. Combining Carisoprodol and guided therapy will restore strength. Then it’s talking with the coach. Even when you do get back in the game, you need a gentle reintroduction. You are going to play less until your strength and stamina returns. That’s the best way to move into the future. If you are good enough, you will still get into the professional game.