New research has found that erectile dysfunction and prostate diseases are amongst the predominant Google search terms when it comes to men’s health topics.
Researchers Dr. Karim Hanna, Dr. Mark Arthur, and Dr. Charles Welliver published their findings last week in the International Journal of Impotence Research.
People are becoming increasingly active consumers of online health information with urologic concerns being no exception.
The authors wrote, “Our objective was to explore online search trends for topics related to men’s health and identify information-seeking patterns related to news and media coverage of these topics.”
They explored search trends using Google Trends for various terms associated with men’s health in the United States over a period of five years.
The Google search queries “provided graphs depicting search volume as a function of time, geographical data, and related topics and queries.”
The authors found that erectile dysfunction and prostate cancer were amongst the top searches on Google.
“Erectile dysfunction was the most-searched topic over the last 5 years in the United States,” the team wrote. “Prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia were the second and third most-searched topics, respectively.”
Erectile dysfunction, also called impotence, is the inability to get and keep an erection firm enough for sex, according to Mayo Clinic.
The overall prevalence of erectile dysfunction in men aged ≥20 years is 18.4%, suggesting that the condition affects 18 million men in the United States, according to the American Journal of Medicine.
Prostate cancer begins when cells in the prostate gland start to grow out of control, according to the American Cancer Society. The prostate is a gland found only in males, which makes some of the fluid that is part of semen.
Other popular searches in men’s health topics included symptoms or pathologies of the testicles and penis.
Most of these topics had relatively stable search volumes. Some searches were also there for premature ejaculation and Peyronie’s disease (penile deformity).
“Several observed spikes in search volume were attributable to singular events, mostly in the form of online article publications or social media posts,” they wrote.
“We believe it may be helpful for providers to stay informed of cultural events relating to medical conditions to anticipate patient concerns,” the authors explained. The article was published on PubMed.
