The drug for erectile dysfunction Viagra could potentially be used as a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Aging.
Patients who used sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, were 69% less likely to develop the disease than non-users.
“Sildenafil, which has been shown to significantly improve cognitive function and memory in preclinical models, has been shown to be the best candidate drug,” said Feixiong Cheng, PhD, lead author of the study at the Cleveland Clinic Institute of Genomic Medicine.
“In particular, we found that sildenafil use reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s in people with coronary heart disease, hypertension and type 2 diabetes, which are all comorbidities that are significantly associated with the risk of the disease, as well as in people without it,” he said.
Alzheimer’s, the most common form of age-related dementia, affects hundreds of millions of people each year. #medicine
Cheng and colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic used a large network of gene mapping to analyze whether more than 1,600 FDA-approved drugs could work against Alzheimer’s. They gave higher scores to drugs that target both amyloid and tau proteins in the brain, which are two hallmarks of the disease. Sildenafil appeared at the top of the list.
The researchers then used a database of health insurance claims of more than 7 million people in the United States to understand the relationship between sildenafil and the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. They compared sildenafil users with non-users and found that those who used the drug were 69% less likely to develop neurodegenerative disease, even after 6 years of follow-up.
The researchers then used a database of health insurance claims of more than 7 million people in the United States to understand the relationship between sildenafil and the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. They compared sildenafil users with non-users and found that those who used the drug were 69% less likely to develop neurodegenerative disease, even after 6 years of follow-up.
“It is important that this research does not show that sildenafil is responsible for reducing the risk of dementia or that it slows or stops the disease,” he said. “#research #science #fda
Sources:
Nature Aging: “Endophenotype-based in silico network medicine discovery combined with insurance record data mining identifies sildenafil as a candidate drug for Alzheimer’s disease.“
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