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Why boda boda riders lose power in bedroom

The now-popular biking exercises and bicycle boda bodas may be making young men impotent. Two recently published studies from Bungoma and Eldoret show that men who cycle for long periods are nine times more likely to become impotent compared to noncyclists.

“It is a matter of either putting bacon on the table or keeping the bedroom fire burning. I chose the latter,” says Gideon, who has distributed sodas on a bicycle in Donholm, Nairobi, for 12 years. In the process, Gideon says he has lost three wives as they felt the flame dim with every additional mile he cycled.

“I am now telling young men to go slow on the pedal,” he adds.

 Vigorous biking

This is sound advice, confirms Isaac Wamalwa, a practising consultant gynaecologist in Nairobi who led the Bungoma study. Wamalwa says most young men undertaking vigorous biking exercises or cycling boda bodas for long hours may be gradually losing their manhood.

“We surveyed young bicycle taxi riders in Bungoma and the results were stunning,” says Wamalwa, who is also a lecturer at Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology.

The main finding of this study, published in the East African Medical Journal, is that a long period on the mechanical bike is most likely to affect sexual health. Wamalwa’s team, which included reproductive health experts from Kenyatta National Hospital and the University of Nairobi, had investigated 115 boda boda riders, aged below 40, in Bungoma.

Erectile dysfunction

“Overall we found more than a third, 35.9 per cent, of the study participants to suffer erectile dysfunction,” says Wamalwa. The team reports that while the period one has been riding did not seem to matter so much, the length of riding in hours per week was associated with erectile dysfunction (ED).

The team, all practising medical doctors, associated long hours of bicycle riding to higher rates of ED among boda boda taxi riders.

“None of those who rode for more than 60 hours per week had a normal erectile function,” says the report.

But equally important, Wamalwa says, is the erectile health of thousands of young men cycling for long hours on stationary bikes in most urban gyms all over the country.

“Our message is important for them as well, take regular breaks in between cycling and while you worry over bacon on the table the bedroom fire should also matter,” he says.

 The doctors recommended that cyclists should reduce biking hours and rest more to reduce the risk of erectile dysfunction and increase marital sexual satisfaction.

But even before the dust had settled over Wamalwa’s study, on Wednesday, another team of medical experts from Moi University’s School of Medicine posted similar results in the same journal. A team of six experts from the university had enrolled 350 male subjects in and around Eldoret town in Uasin Gishu County.

About half of the study subjects were boda boda riders, while the rest were noncyclists involved in the project for comparison purposes.

The participants were aged between 18 and 65 years at an average of 40. Results indicate that 131 of the cyclists, 76 per cent, reported experiencing ED.

 Sexually active

“In contrast, all of the noncyclists reported to be sexually active and only 61 or 33 per cent experienced erectile dysfunction,” says the report.

Over 40 per cent of the cyclists complained of pain, ache and numbness in various body parts such as joints, back, chest and thighs, which was associated to ED.

“Our analysis indicated that the odds of reporting ED were 9.1 times higher in cyclists compared to non-cyclists in the study,” writes the Eldoret team.

The Eldoret study also concluded that prolonged cycling, as is the case with boda-bodas, increases the risk of developing ED.

The two studies agree that cycling is associated with changes in penile blood flow and a decrease of oxygen pressure to the genitals, and when prolonged can lead to ED.

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