According to a new US study, Viagra may be a useful treatment against Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, there is no cure for the most common type of age-related dementia. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic used gene-mapping networks and compiled genetic data from more than 1,600 Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs to figure out the most effective treatments for Alzheimer’s. Viagra, also known as sildenafil, has been proven to “improve cognition and memory in preclinical models” and has been found to be the best drug candidate, The Guardian quoted Dr. Feixiang Cheng, who led the research. Did. The team then compared people using sildenafil and non-users to determine the relationship between the drug and disease, through a database of more than 7 million people in the US. Six years of research found that sildenafil users were 69% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than non-users. The team also came up with a model that indicated that the drug increased multiplying brain cell growth and affected the tau protein, the findings of which were published in the journal Nature Aging.
Initially meant to be a drug for the heart by improving blood flow and widening blood vessels, Viagra was then found to be effective for treating erectile dysfunction as well. Sildenafil is also used for pulmonary hypertension, a lung condition. However, Dr. Cheng cautioned that the research does not imply a causal relationship between the two. He added that randomized trials of both sexes with a placebo control are necessary to ascertain the true efficacy of sildenafil.
Dr Ivan Koychev, a senior clinical researcher at Oxford University who was not part of the research, said this was exciting news because it refers to a particular drug that could lead to an innovative approach to treating dementia. .
Professor Tara Spears-Jones, deputy director of the Center for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, said there are several constraints to be taken into account with regard to this research. The Guardian quotes him as saying, “While these data are scientifically interesting, based on this study, I am in no rush to start taking sildenafil as a prevention for Alzheimer’s disease.”
Dr Susan Koolhaas, director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said repurposing the drug to treat other medical conditions could speed up the process of finding effective treatments for dementia. He added that the findings of this study can only be substantiated with a large-scale clinical trial that compared sildenafil with the usual recommended treatments. Current research doesn’t fully prove that the pill helps prevent or slow the disease.
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