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Q. What can I do about a flagging libido? I'm 66 years old and in very good health, with no bad habits. My only medication is Lipitor to lower cholesterol.
My much younger wife and I used to have a vigorous and inventive sex life, but my interest in sex has practically disappeared. The only time I get aroused is around 4 am, which is impractical to say the least. What do you suggest?
A. We suggest you talk with your physician. Lipitor (atorvastatin), Zocor (simvastatin) and other statin-type cholesterol-lowering drugs may interfere with sexual desire and performance. The authors of a Dutch study propose that lowering cholesterol with these drugs may alter testosterone production (British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, Sept. 2004). That is because cholesterol is a building block for hormones like testosterone.
Rather than stopping the drug on your own, please get your doctor’s guidance about how to lower your cholesterol without ruining your love life. We are sending you our Guides to Sexual Dysfunction and Cholesterol Lowering Drugs. If testosterone levels are low, a prescription for testosterone may restore your lost libido.
Lipitor can definitely decrease libido. My husband, despite a very healthy lifestyle and weight, has high cholesterol. His doctor started him on Lipitor, andwhen the cholesterol didn't come down, increased the dosage. I started noticing that he wasn't as enthusiastic about our (previously very active) sex life, not initiating and having difficulty maintaining an erection. When I asked he said he just wasn't feeling aroused, and that he'd noticed that his usual morning erections weren't occuring.
I found some sites online that linked E.D. with statins. When he asked his doctor if that might be the problem, the doc said to stop them for a month and see what happened. Within a week his libido had returned big time! For about 2 weeks he was more sexual than since our marriage in our early 20s (we were in our early 50s when this happened). Then our sex life went back to pre-statin levels, and has remained there for the past few years. He takes Niacin and other O.T.C.s, eats oatmeal every day and exercises regularly, but won't go back to have his cholesterol retested.