Viagra helps reduce heart disease risk
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By Kim Da-hee
Erectile dysfunction medication, such as Viagra, help reduce the risk of heart diseases, research shows.
Researchers at the University of Manchester Center for Cardiac Research studied 6,000 patients with diabetes who had taken Viagra.
Viagra is used to treat erectile dysfunction by relaxing muscle cells in the blood vessels supplying the penis.
The relaxed muscle cells allow more blood to flow there, increasing the likelihood of an erection.
Despite diabetes patients being prone to heart disease, the patients on the medication showed a lower risk of a heart attack or dying from heart failure than those who did not take the medication.
Led by Professor Andrew Trafford, the team concluded that PDE5i, a key ingredient in Viagra, helped prevent damage to heart cells and relaxed the blood vessels.
“Our studies have shown that drugs normally used to treat erectile dysfunction, such as Viagra, actually have a very pronounced effect in slowing the progression of heart failure as well as reducing the likelihood of fatal arrhythmias,” Trafford wrote in the journal BMJ Heart.