Many natural herbs are used alone or in conjunction with other drugs or herbs to help men with the problem of Impotence or Erectile Dysfunction. Research shows that L-Arginine indeed works.

Much like Viagra, L-Arginine is believed to stimulate the action of nitric oxide. What does that mean to your erection? Well nitric Oxide relaxes the muscles and the blood vessels that are in the penis. Because it does that, the blood vessels dilate allowing more blood in which helps you to get and maintain your erection.

The big difference though in Viagra and L-Arginine is that Viagra blocks an important enzyme known as PDE5 which destroys nitric oxide whereas L-Arginine is used in the production of nitric oxide.

Another difference in the two is that Viagra is only taken when needed whereas L-Arginine needs to be taken daily.

A little history on L-Arginine is that it was discovered in 1886 and then over the years it has been found to be necessary to create urea and to make creatine. It is a semi essential amino acid and usually your body makes all that you need.

If you need extra then you can get it naturally from many nuts, legumes and seeds. If you have to little in your body you may not heal well, lose your hair, be constipated and have a fatty liver.

For men the fact that L-Arginine changes into nitric oxide and thus causes the blood vessels to dilate is really the only thing you need to know...more blood equals more and harder erections.

There were two studies I found on the effectiveness of L-Arginine for erectile dysfunction.

The first concluded that there was improved sexual function in 60% of the men who took L-Arginine 5 grams a day for six weeks.

The second had the men using L-Arginine 500mgs three times a day for 3 weeks. In this study it was shown that it had no benefit at all.

Most of the side effects for L-Arginine are of the gastrointestinal kind as the high doses of L-Arginine needed to get the wanted results stimulates the body to make gastrin, which in turn increases stomach acid. So tummy ache and diarrhea are common complaints. Other side effects include low blood pressure, increased bleeding and it can worsen asthma.