News

Mar 15, 2025

Men Regularly Drinking Grape Juice Had Lower Erectile Dysfunction Risk

ByBruce Y. Lee , Senior Contributor. A study found that men who regularly consumed grape juice, meaning five or more times a week, were ... [+] less likely to report experiencing erectile dysfunction.

ByBruce Y. Lee

, Senior Contributor.

A study found that men who regularly consumed grape juice, meaning five or more times a week, were ... [+] less likely to report experiencing erectile dysfunction. But before you erect a stack of grape juice containers next to your bed, keep in mind how this study was done and where it’s conclusions may or may not stand up in the future. (Photo: Getty)

At first blush, this may seem like some grape news. Men who regularly consumed grape juice, meaning five or more times a week, were less likely to report experiencing erectile dysfunction in a study published in The Aging Male. But before you erect a stack of grape juice containers next to your bed, keep in mind how this study was done and where its conclusions may or may not, ahem, stand up in the future.

The study was one of those let’s-see-if-there-are-associations-in-existing-data types of studies. In this case, the study authors (Liwei Wu, Bing Lia, Hang Zhou and Xiaoqiang Liu) from Tianjin Medical University General Hospital in Tianjin, China, analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003–2004. The 2003-2004 version of the NHANES dataset happened to include questions about male erectile function and frequency of different types of various beverage consumption. They excluded the 2695 individuals for whom responses for the ED questions were absent and 743 participants who didn’t. completely respond to the beverage consumption questions to yield a sample of 1532 men, aged 20 and older with an average age of 47.2 years. Of this sample, 510 reported a diagnosis of ED

The researchers then used univariate and multivariate logistic regression to look for associations with an emphasis on the a-word: associations. The regression analyses showed that those who consumed grape juice five or more times a week were 79% less likely to report having ED. When they applied a technique called propensity score matching, this number increased to 88%.

Why the heck might drinking grape juice be associated with a lower risk of ED? Well, one possibility presented by the researchers is that grape juice contains anti-oxidants like polyphenols. Erections occur when blood rushes through arteries into the penis to fill tubes of spongy tissue called the corpora cavernosa located in the shaft of your penis as I have described previously for Forbes. Disease like diabetes that can affect the arteries can lead to erectile dysfunction. Antioxidants like the ones found in grape juice could possibly, potentially, perhaps improve the functioning of the walls of such arteries. For example, studies have suggested that resveratrol, a polyphenol found in red grapes, might help protect the cavernosa in mice.

But, of course, seeing something in mice is not the same thing as seeing something in humans. Mice and humans may be similar in some ways, but they are different in numerous other ways. For example, mice don’t tend to post things on Instagram quite as often as humans do.

Moreover, associations or correlations do not necessarily mean cause-and-effect. Just because two things correlate with each other doesn’t mean that one thing led to the other. So, even though swimming pool drownings may have increased in the years that actor Nicholas Cage came out with a new movie doesn’t mean that people should use extra life preservers should Cage appear in a new Ghostrider 3 movie or some other cinematic offering.

Similarly, there could be a number of confounding reasons why those who drank grape juice just happened to be less likely to experience erectile dysfunction. The study couldn’t really tease what was happening in each of the men’s lives such as their stress levels. A number of things can cause ED, ranging from stress and anxiety to chronic diseases to certain medications to particular types of surgery to hearing the Macarena. And ED is not an uncommon thing to have, as I have detailed previously.

For now, be careful about what you squeeze out of this grape juice study. Finding such a correlation with grape juice consumption does raise some interesting penis possibilities. But the emphasis here must be on the p-word, meaning possibilities. Right now it’s still hard to say whether drinking grape juice will actually help with erections until more and different studies are done.