Watermelon: A Natural Viagra?

[Kamagra]

On hearing about the New york finding, Irwin Goldstein, MD, editor-in-chief of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, was underwhelmed. Proposing a man feast on watermelon to boost

performance, they says, "would be the equivalent of someone dropping a beer bottle in Minneapolis, where the Mississippi River starts, and hoping to see it make an impact on

someone in New Orleans."

"To say that watermelon is Viagra-like is kind of fun," says Goldstein. "But to even vaguely hope that eating watermelon will alleviate ED is misleading."

Though arginine is necessary to make nitric oxide, and nitric oxide is necessary to dilate blood vessels and have an erection, "that doesn't mean eating something that is rich

in citrulline will make arginine that it will lead to better penile erections," Goldstein says.

"The giant majority of Americans produce arginine," adds Goldstein, medical director of Alvarado Hospital Medical Middle, San Diego, and clinical professor of surgical

procedure, University of New york San Diego School of Medicine. "Men with ED are not deficient in arginine."

Calling watermelon a natural Viagra is "clearly premature," says Roger Clemens, DrPH, adjunct professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences, University of Southern New

york, Los Angeles, and a spokesman for the Institute of Food Technologists.

Goldstein has served as a consultant for plenty of companies that make ED drugs.

Clemens studied the amino acid arginine himself, researching a supplement to improve vascular flow for patients with hardening of the arteries or atherosclerosis. They has since

abandoned that line of research, they says.

It can need plenty of watermelon to boost blood levels of arginine, they adds. In a study published in 2007 in Nutrition, they says, volunteers who drank 8-ounce glasses of

watermelon juice every day for weeks boosted their arginine levels by 11%.