Association between plasma fluorescent oxidation products and erectile dysfunction: A prospective study

BACKGROUND: Existing epidemiological studies of the association between oxidative stress and erectile dysfunction (ED) are sparse and inconclusive, which is likely due to cross-sectional design and small sample size. Therefore, we investigated the association between biomarkers of oxidative stress and ED in prospective setting among a relatively large sample size of men. METHODS: We conducted the prospective study among 917 men ages between 47 and 80 years at the time of blood draw, which is a part of nested prospective case–control study of prostate cancer in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Plasma fluorescent oxidation products (FlOPs), a global biomarker for oxidative stress, were measured at three excitation/emission wavelengths (360/420 nm named as FlOP_360; 320/420 nm named as FlOP_320 and 400/475 nm named as FlOP_400). RESULTS: Approximately 35 % of men developed ED during follow-up. We did not find an independent association between FlOP_360, FlOP_320, FlOP_400 and risk of ED in the multivariable adjusted model (Tertile 3 vs. tertile 1: odds ratio [OR] = 0.90, 95 % confidence interval [CI] = 0.61-1.34, P(trend) = 0.54 for FlOP_360; OR = 0.73, 95 % CI = 0.49-1.07, P(trend) = 0.27 for FlOP_320; and OR = 0.98, 95 % CI = 0.66-1.45, P(trend) = 0.72 for FlOP_400). Further analysis of the association between FlOPs and ED in the fasting samples or controls only (free of prostate cancer incidence) did not change the results appreciably. CONCLUSIONS: Plasma FlOPs were not associated with the risk of ED, suggesting oxidative stress may not be an independent risk factor for ED. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12894-015-0083-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.