Viagra could do more than just boost men’s performance as a new study found that it might also slash the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by an impressive 50 percent.
The key ingredient in Viagra, sildenafil, is also used in Revatio, a medicine for high blood pressure in the lungs.
The research, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, suggests this compound could be used to treat the brain disease.
Scientists at the Cleveland Clinic found that people who regularly took sildenafil for problems like erectile dysfunction or high lung blood pressure had a 30 percent to 54 percent lower chance of getting Alzheimer’s compared to those who didn’t take it.
Alzheimer’s, a type of dementia, affects nearly a million people in the United Kingdom, according to the NHS.
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They found a 54 percent drop in Alzheimer’s cases in the MarketScan database and a 30 percent drop in the Clinformatics database among patients consuming Viagra and Revatio.
The researchers expanded their study on sildenafil, discovering that brain samples from people with Alzheimer’s appeared to have a lowered amount of harmful tau proteins when the compound was applied.
Tau proteins build up in the brain as Alzheimer’s disease progresses. In the past, scientists thought the proteins were linked to amyloid plaques believed to cause the illness.
The study also found that neurons exposed to sildenafil showed improved brain development and function, reduced inflammation, and changed metabolic processes associated with Alzheimer’s-related cognitive decline.