GB NEWS
The ongoing fight against Alzheimer’s disease has a new and unexpected weapon in its arsenal: Viagra.
Researchers found that men who took the erectile dysfunction pill and similar drugs were less likely to develop the brain disorder than those who did not.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia – a syndrome associated with the ongoing decline of brain functioning.
Dementia is the UK’s biggest killer, accounting for more than one in ten of all deaths across the country.
Despite decades of research, a cure or prevention for dementia has yet to be found, but the latest study could help move the dial, says Alzheimer’s Research UK.
As the charity explains, the possibility of repurposing drugs already used for other health conditions could help “accelerate progress and open up new avenues to prevent or treat dementia-causing diseases”.
What did the researchers find out?
The new study, published in the journal Neurology, saw experts from University College London (UCL) examine the medical records of 269,725 UK men aged 40 and over, with an average age of 59, who were diagnosed with erectile dysfunction between 2000 and 2017.
Men with a previous diagnosis of dementia or cognitive impairment were not included in the analysis.
Just over half (55 percent) had been prescribed a type of medication known as a PDE5I drug, including sildenafil (sold as Viagra), tadalafil (Cialis), vardenafil and avanafil.
Viagra was the first of these treatments and was originally developed to treat high blood pressure and angina.
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