Studies Showed That Viagra Is Related To Lower Alzheimer's Risk For About 70%

According to new research, using the drug sildenafil more often known as the brand name drug Viagra is linked to a much lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. As per the study done by Cleveland Clinic experts, using sildenafil reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease by over 70% when compared to non-users. This is founded on a review with over 7.2 million people's health insurance claim data, that revealed that individuals who took the prescription that was considerably less certain to develop Alzheimer's disease over the next six years than matched control patients who didn't take sildenafil.

It's vital to remember that observing relationships like these – especially on such a large scale – isn't the same as proving a causal effect. It's possible, for example, that the people in the sildenafil cohort have something else to credit for their reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease. Indeed, the researchers claim that the correlation displayed, along with other indicators in the study, is sufficient to recognize sildenafil as a good potential candidate drug for Alzheimer's disease, whose viability can be investigated in future randomized clinical trials to see if causality exists.

Feixiong Cheng from the Cleveland Clinic, a computational biologist and senior author of the study, particularly, discovered that taking sildenafil reduced the risk of Alzheimer's disease in people with coronary artery disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes, all of which are comorbidities that are strongly linked to the disease's risk, as well as in people who did not have any of these comorbidities. It is not the only time sildenafil has been connected to improved health results, the medicine has already shown promise in a variety of scientific contexts, including cancer and malaria research, to name a few. Cheng's team started by creating over a dozen endophenotype modules, then used computational tools to pinpoint genetic elements that could potentially influence Alzheimer's disease manifestation. According to Cheng, recent studies demonstrate that the interaction between amyloid and tau is a greater contributor to Alzheimer's disease than either protein alone.

After obtaining 13 of these modules, the researchers investigated which FDA-approved medications would be useful in combating the observed phenotypes. Sildenafil was one of the most promising prospects among the nearly 1,600 such drugs currently approved by the FDA. In its interactions with the amyloid and tau proteins implicated in Alzheimer's pathology, there were early signals in the research community that the sildenafil molecule could have other health benefits.

In another study of human brain cells in vitro to see if sildenafil could help guard against Alzheimer's disease, the researchers discovered that neurons treated with the drug grew faster and had less tau accumulation. Meanwhile, it is still early, but such impacts could play a role in the insurance cohort's lower risk of getting Alzheimer's disease. As a result, the team believes it is critical to pursue these leads further.