Cymbalta Testing On Erectile Function

It is commonly known among doctors and health professional that the use of anti-depressant medicine can have adverse effects on sexual function and be the cause of erectile dyfunction in men. However recent testing with the anti-depressant drug Cymbalta or duloxetine to give it its clinical name has shown that it doesn't affect sexual function like all the others. The researchers showed their results at this years AGM of the American Psychiatric Association.

It is also well known by doctors that both men and women who are depressed and who use anti-depressants often stop using them because of the side effects they experience and this obviously reduces the effectiveness of the medicine. The one single side effect most reported by men is erectile dysfunction, which in itself can be a cause of depression.

In the research program at the University of Virginia into the effects of the anti-depressant Cymbalta nearly seven hundred depressive patients were given either 60 mg daily of Cymbalta or 10 mg daily of another anti-depressant called Lexapro or they were given a placebo pill. The research was conducted over eight weeks and at set intervals the participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire about their sexual function.

Over the course of the program the men using Lexapro reported a weakening of sexual function when compared to those men on the placebo and those using the Cymbalta. The men using Cymbalta and the placebo reported similar sexual function levels. In fact after 8 weeks all the men reported worse sexual function but the figures were 37% for Cymbalta, 49% for the placebo and 59% for Lexapro.  For the women who took part in the program the sexual dysfunction rates were almost identical for both Lexapro and Cymbalta (38% and 36% respectively) compared to 26% for the placebo.

More research was conducted in to the effects of the drugs on sexual function over a longer period after the first 2 months were over and the patients were assigned different doses of the respective drugs. It was noted that by the time 8 months were up the difference in the sexual dysfunction figures for the two drugs were negligible and the researchers said that this is due to the fact that some patients acclimatise to the sexual dysfunction and it disappears but this can take as much as 6 months to happen.