Viagra could be the key to curing Alzheimer’s

Men who take drugs like viagra for erectile dysfunction may be inadvertently reducing their chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests.

Men who took drugs to combat the issue were 18% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who did not.

The new study, published in the journal Neurology, saw experts from University College London (UCL) examine the medical records of 269,725 UK men aged 40 and over, with an average age of 59, who were diagnosed with erectile dysfunction between 2000 and 2017.

Alzheimer’s Research UK said that the possibility of repurposing drugs already used for other health conditions could help “accelerate progress and open up new avenues to prevent or treat dementia-causing diseases”.

The charity said that the findings were “encouraging” but called for larger studies to confirm the results and examine the impact such drugs could have on other groups such as women and men without erectile dysfunction.

Men with a previous diagnosis of dementia or cognitive impairment were not included in the analysis.

Just over half (55%) had been prescribed a type of medication known as a PDE5I drug, including sildenafil (sold as Viagra), tadalafil (Cialis), vardenafil and avanafil.

Viagra was the first of these treatments and was originally developed to treat high blood pressure and angina.

UCL experts said that previous animal research has found PDE5I drugs (phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors) have some “neuroprotective benefits”.

During the follow-up period – an average of 5.1 years – some 1,119 men were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.