Alzheimer’s is known to be a type of dementia that affects the memory, thinking as well as behaviour of people who have been diagnosed with the disease. According to a reputable expert medical publication – Alzheimer’s Association- if symptoms become severe the impact of this is known to interfere and have a big impact with one’s daily tasks.
“Scientists believe that for most people, Alzheimer’s disease is caused by a combination of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors that affect the brain over time.
“In less than 1% of cases, Alzheimer’s is caused by specific genetic changes that almost guarantee a person will develop the disease,” explains health and wellness publication Mayo Clinic.
While this disease is often incurable there have been rumours that have linked the use of Viagra – a sexual drug used to increase the amount of blood flow to the penis and increase erectile dysfunction – to being a key substance to lowering the chances of individuals becoming affected with Alzheimer’s.
Amercican based research publication, the National Institute of Health reports that a team of medical experts led by Dr. Feixiong Cheng at the Cleveland Clinic developed a computational method for identifying FDA-approved drugs that might be effective against the Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
According to the above-mentioned publication, the objective was to look at existing medical drugs and see how they react against the disease.
“After considering other factors, the top candidate was sildenafil, also known by the brand names Viagra and Revatio. Sildenafil is FDA-approved to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension,” explains the NIH.
After testing this theory by analysing insurance claims collected by more than 7 million people, most of who were men it was found that those who “who took sildenafil were 69% less likely to develop AD over 6 years than those who did not take the drug.”
However, the NIH reveals that there is still little evidence that proves that Viagra has the ability to reverse or prevent the AD entirely.
Similarly, Forbes Africa reported on the latest developments earlier this year adding that the reason the risk of Alzheimer is successfully reduced is because Viagra “improves brain health by increasing blood flow to the brain and reducing the amount of energy neurons consumed in the brain.”
Meanwhile, it is important to know that the use of Viagra does come with certain side effects, according to medical publication Drug Watch, these include:
- An erection that will not go away (priapism)
- Sudden vision loss in one or both eyes.
- Sudden hearing decrease or hearing loss.
- Some men have also experienced heart attack, stroke, irregular heartbeats and even death after taking Viagra.
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