Could Viagra lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease?
Researchers have found that Viagra (sildenafil) may have an effect on Alzheimer’s disease based on genetic and other biological data.
When they evaluated prescription insurance claims, they discovered that sildenafil scrips were related with a 69 percent lower incidence of Alzheimer’s among claimants.
Laboratory investigations on nerve cells from Alzheimer’s patients supported the idea that sildenafil may be used to treat the condition.
However, the researchers note that only clinical studies can give conclusive evidence that sildenafil is an effective Alzheimer’s therapy.
Doctors give sildenafil — better known by its brand name, Viagra — to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs).
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However, multiple trials in mice and a few pilot studies in people have shown that sildenafil might be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease.
A recent research has offered biological and population-based data to support the concept that the medicine may aid in the prevention and treatment of the condition.
“Developing medications for illnesses that affect the brain, such as Alzheimer’s, is an expensive procedure that may take several years,” said Dr. Susan Kohlhaas, Ph.D., director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK in the United Kingdom.
“Being able to repurpose a medicine that is already approved for another health condition might help speed up the drug development process and provide life-changing dementia therapies to patients sooner,” she added.
The research was conducted by the Genomic Medicine Institute at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was published in Nature AgingTrusted Source.
The death of brain cells causes gradual memory loss and cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent type of dementia.
Scientists anticipate that due to our ageing population, 13.8 million individuals in the United States alone will develop Alzheimer’s disease by 2050.
Alzheimer’s Disease Characteristics
Could Viagra lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease?
The primary distinguishing features
Plaques of a protein called beta-amyloid and fibrous tangles of tau, another protein, are believed to be the source of the illness in the brain.
Clinical investigations of medicines and vaccines targeting the two proteins, on the other hand, have shown dismal results.
Alzheimer’s disease is caused by a complicated combination of genes and environmental factors.
The researchers utilised a computer model that integrates data about the disease’s genetics as well as the implicated networks of metabolic pathways to forecast which current medications may give novel therapies.
They focused on protein interactions in networks that play a role in the formation of both beta-amyloid and tau.
The researchers then developed “network proximity metrics” for over 1,600 authorised medications based on how closely they interact with these Alzheimer’s-related networks.
This enabled the researchers to limit the field down to 66 medicines that may possibly treat the condition. Taking into account additional factors, such as encouraging findings from animal models of Alzheimer’s disease, sildenafil emerged as the most viable choice.
The researchers conducted further study by evaluating prescription insurance data from 7.23 million patients in the United States.
They observed that claimants who were supplied sildenafil had a 69 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease during the next 6 years.
After controlling for other characteristics that increase Alzheimer’s risk, such as gender, ethnicity, and other medical problems, the link remained statistically significant. Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and moderate cognitive impairment were among the disorders identified.
Finally, the researchers tested sildenafil in the lab on nerve cells derived from Alzheimer’s patients to establish that it may impact the fundamental process of the illness.
They discovered that sildenafil stimulated the formation of new nerve projections and reduced tau buildup in the cells.
Tau is often used as a biomarker by researchers to track the progression of illness in both animal models and humans.
What about cause and effect?
The authors emphasise that their research design cannot indicate a causal association between the use of a specific medicine and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
According to them, there might be hidden confounding variables that impact not just Alzheimer’s risk but also the chance of sildenafil usage.
Education level and socioeconomic position are two potential confounding variables that the insurance data did not account for.
However, there was no significant difference in total yearly prescription expenditures between sildenafil users and nonusers, suggesting that the two groups were not economically different.
The authors feel their lab data back up their judgement that sildenafil might be used as a therapy.
“We don’t anticipate socioeconomic position will drive our results,” senior author Feixiong Cheng, Ph.D., told MNT. “We further verified our findings in [Alzheimer’s] patient-derived [nerve cell] models as well.”
The authors also point out that the insurance data did not contain genetic information, such as whether claimants had a certain variant of the apolipoprotein E gene, which raises the risk of Alzheimer’s and alters patients’ reactions to therapy.
Furthermore, since healthcare practitioners often administer sildenafil to men, the research was unable to identify any potential advantages in females in terms of Alzheimer’s risk.
“While the researchers looked at the impact of sildenafil on females, there isn’t enough evidence to make precise conclusions regarding its effect on females, who account for the bulk of Alzheimer’s cases globally,” Dr. Kohlhaas stated.
“Most importantly, this study does not indicate that sildenafil reduces dementia risk or that it slows or prevents the illness,” she added.
“The only method to evaluate this would be in a large-scale clinical study comparing the effects of sildenafil to the standard of treatment.”
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source:medicalnewstoday
