Drugs designed to lower your high cholesterol levels are a popular way to combat a widespread problem among people of a certain age. Their use is on the rise in America -- the percentage of people age 40 and older taking the drugs reached 28 percent as of 2012, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The survey measured the number of Americans taking the drugs between 2003 and 2012.

Roughly one in six adults has high cholesterol, CDC research shows.

Of the medications available, the most common are statins. Their use increased to 26 percent from 18 percent, according to the CDC. By 2012, of all adults using cholesterol-lowering drugs, some 93 percent used statins.

Clearly, doctors see a benefit to increasing use of statins, which research has shown lower the risk of a heart attack, stroke and other causes of premature death. Both men and women can use the drugs. Just less than 30 million people in the United States use such statins as Lipitor or Zocor, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a government agency.

Now the Bad News

But one big downside to using statins is rarely mentioned. Statins can significantly lower testosterone levels in men, which can lead to a variety of sexual problems, including erectile dysfunction, low libido and more. Research on 3,500 men who complained of erectile dysfunction found an association between use of statins and hypogonadism, which causes men not to produce enough testosterone. The 2010 study confirmed small tests previously performed on a limited field of patients, most of the studies using fewer than 50 subjects.