Record number of men over 80 taking Viagra including one gent aged 102
RECORD numbers of men aged over 80, including one aged 102, have been using drugs like Viagra to keep their peckers up in lockdown.
Prescriptions for pills to help with erectile dysfunction have risen 42 per cent in five years.
Last year there were 180,000 prescriptions for Viagra-style drugs issued to men in their 80s.
Almost another 5,000 were given to men in their 90s.
And the figures show that the 102-year-old is not alone as in recent years these type of drugs have also been handed out to men aged 99, 100 and 101.
In total last year there were 4.4million such prescriptions, costing the NHS £21.3million.
The figure was down slightly — by three per cent — on the year before. But the numbers given to men aged 80 and above bucked the trend and continued to rise.
Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, said: “I’m not surprised that the number of men over 80 who are using Viagra to maintain a semblance of a sex life is at an all-time high.
Most read in Health News
“In a world where just about anything is sexualised old timers are under unprecedented pressure to keep it up.”
The NHS stats include all prescriptions given by GPs in England to help patients deal with erectile dysfunction.
By far the most popular is Sildenafil — the generic name for the drug known as Viagra.