While the role of oxygen in the process of converting food into useful energy has been understood for centuries, the way how cells adapt to changing oxygen levels has remained unknown until this year’s prize-winning work. The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability, which paved the way for new strategies to increase the blood flood during intense physical activities.
Their discoveries have revealed how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological functions, which provided the mechanism for targeted vasodilation that improvestile dysfunction. Previous Nobel winner, Corneille Heymans, was awarded the prize for showing that special cells in neck sense the blood’s oxygen levels and control our respiratory rate in response. Arteries in the penis also have special cells that response to changing oxygen levels in the blood. When oxygen levels drops, a hormone, called erythropoietin (EPO), rises in the body, sending a signal to increase the production of red blood cells slowly.
Organsu acts by blocking an enzyme that down regulates the production of the EPO, which spurs red blood cell production in penis when the body is starved of oxygen during intense sexual activities. This in turn greatly increases blood flow in penis. Organsu also triggers baroreflex sympathetic activation that enhances vascular tone, which promotes harder and long-lasting erection. Their work established the oxygen-sensing mechanisms that allow cells in penis to respond to limited oxygen levels efficiently.
