Viagra, a treatment for erectile dysfunction, turns out to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease by a third



Sildenafil , used as a treatment for erectile dysfunction 'Viagra' and a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension 'Levathio', was found to reduce the incidence of Alzheimer's disease by 69%.

Endophenotype-based in silico network medicine discovery combined with insurance record data mining identifies sildenafil as a candidate drug for Alzheimer's disease | Nature Aging
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-021-00138-z

Cleveland Clinic research identifies sildenaf | Eurek Alert!
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/936613

Giant Study Finds Viagra Is Linked to Almost 70% Lower Risk of Alzheimer's
https://www.sciencealert.com/giant-study-finds-viagra-is-linked-to-almost-70-lower-risk-of-alzheimer-s

Alzheimer's disease is estimated to affect 13.8 million people in the United States alone by 2050, so there is an urgent need to develop effective treatments. However, it is pointed out that the development of a new drug requires a very long time and a huge cost, and that the treatment drug ' Aducanumab (trade name: ADUHELM) ' approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also carries the risk of brain tumor. There are many issues left with new drugs, such as being treated.

Researchers criticize 'Alzheimer's drug' approved by the regulatory agency, 'The risk of brain swelling is very high' --GIGAZINE



Therefore, the research team of Dr. Feixiong Cheng and others who are researching drug discovery using AI at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States is taking a database of medicines used for various purposes and the medicines. We conducted a study using human medical data to investigate what would happen if existing medicines were used to treat Alzheimer's disease.

The research team first identified multiple endophenotypes, which are genetic features associated with Alzheimer's disease, and compared them with a database of 1600 FDA-approved medicines to determine which existing medicines have Alzheimer's disease. I simulated whether it would be effective. As a result, sildenafil was identified as a drug that acts on both amyloid and tau protein, which are closely related to Alzheimer's disease.

'Sildenafil, which has been shown to significantly improve cognition and memory in nonclinical models, has been identified as the most promising candidate for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease,' Dr. Cheng said. I'm talking.



After finding that sildenafil is likely to be effective in treating Alzheimer's disease, the research team then used a medical insurance database of 7 million Americans to investigate the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease in sildenafil users. bottom. The results showed that people using sildenafil were 69% less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than non-users. In addition, sildenafil users are 55% compared to the hypertension treatment 'rosartan ', which is also a candidate for treatment , 63% compared to the diabetes treatment 'metformin ', the hypoglycemic agent ' glimepiride ', and the vasodilator. The incidence of Alzheimer's disease was 65% lower than that of ' Diltiazem'.

Regarding this result, Dr. Cheng said, 'It is noteworthy that sildenafil can cause Alzheimer's disease regardless of whether or not it has coronary artery disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes, which are closely related to the risk of Alzheimer's disease. It turns out that sex is reduced. '

The researchers only showed that this study was associated with 'use of sildenafil' and 'reduced incidence of Alzheimer's disease,' and did not prove a causal relationship between the two. I emphasize that. Nevertheless, sildenafil is a promising treatment for Alzheimer's disease, so the research team will conduct clinical trials of sildenafil in the future to find a way to utilize sildenafil, which has already been certified by the FDA, as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. It is a policy to do.

in Science, Posted by log1l_ks