Why alcohol and sex don't mix

How many men have had the experience winding up in bed after a long night of drinking and found that nothing happened? They were impotent? It now appears that alcohol's well-known anti-sexual effects occur because it reduces the production of NO. In one recent study, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania took strips of rabbit corpus cavernosum tissue and bathed it in various solutions. They found that a solution of 5% alcohol significantly reduced the ability of the strips to relax when stimulated by a small electric current. When they added the drug nitroprusside, which supplies NO molecules, the muscle tissue behaved normally and relaxed when stimulated [Saito, 1994].

These data suggest that too much alcohol in the blood interrupts the normal production of NO, but they do not tell us at which step the interruption occurs. Does it block NOS activity? Does it affect L-arginine availability? Does it "eat up" NO molecules before they have chance to reach their destination? No one knows for sure. Thus, it's not known whether adding extra L-arginine to the system by taking a supplement should be able to overcome alcohol-induced inhibition of erection. Although it is certainly conceivable that L-arginine can improve sexual performance in people with this problem, we have had no anecdotal reports supporting this. If drinking interferes with your sexual activity, you might try taking some L-arginine before sex and see if it helps.

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