If you solely learn the headlines this week, you would possibly assume that taking Viagra might preserve the spark alive in your mind, in addition to in different elements of your anatomy. It’s being reported that Viagra — together with comparable medicine, similar to Cialis — could decrease the danger of growing Alzheimer’s in males. This is predicated on a brand new research performed by researchers at University College, London, and printed within the newest version of the journal Neurology.
“Once researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect the rate of Alzheimer’s disease, such as age, smoking status and alcohol consumption, they found that people who took erectile dysfunction drugs were 18% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than people who did not take the drugs,” the American Academy of Neurology reported. Those who had been issued extra prescriptions for the erectile-dysfunction medicine had been least more likely to develop the illness.
Cue the irresistible headlines.
But there are a number of issues with this.
The first is that one other research, performed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, discovered the other — that taking Viagra or Cialis doesn’t cut back the danger of Alzheimer’s and associated dementias.
There was additionally a 3rd research, which like the newest one did discover an affiliation between Viagra and decrease dementia danger. So now we’re left guessing. Each research has its constraints and caveats. Which one ought to we be guided by?
Meanwhile, the most recent research raises extra questions than it solutions.
It was based mostly simply over 1,100 newly identified Alzheimer’s instances in a gaggle of practically 270,000 males age 40 and over. That’s a really small proportion. And the median follow-up interval was simply 5 years.
What proportion of the individuals within the research who go on to develop dementia could have finished so inside these 5 years? We actually wish to know what number of will develop dementia over 20 years or longer.
And we don’t even know which method the causation flows, if it’s there in any respect. Did the Viagra shield a few of these individuals from growing dementia? Or was it the case that individuals who had been already within the early, undiagnosed phases of Alzheimer’s had been merely a lot much less more likely to go to their physician and ask for a prescription for Viagra? Or perhaps it was the intercourse, not the Viagra, that lowered the danger of Alzheimer’s.
“The study does not prove that erectile dysfunction drugs reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” the AAN stated. “It only shows an association.”
I reached out to the authors of the brand new research. I haven’t heard again but.
Source web site: www.marketwatch.com
