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Virginia Commonwealth University
Viagra shown to protect the heart A medical researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University has discovered a new and potentially important use for the male impotence drug, Viagra – heart protection.
The discovery by Dr. Rakesh C. Kukreja, professor of internal medicine and Eric Lipman Chair in cardiology at VCU’s School of Medicine, is reported in the September issue of the American Journal of Physiology – Heart and Circulatory Physiology. “Some people who are using Viagra may be receiving an unintentional benefit of protecting the heart,” said Dr. Kukreja. “If they develop a heart problem later, it might not be as bad. These results are very exciting because of the possibility that one day we may be able to use Viagra for other cardiovascular diseases, in addition to erectile dysfunction in men.” Pfizer received Federal Drug Administration approval in March 1998 to manufacture and sell the drug, sildenafil, as an oral treatment for impotence, which affects millions of men. In the past 4 years, Pfizer Inc. has sold enough of the drug, trade named Viagra, to fill 100 million prescriptions for 20 million patients worldwide, making Viagra one of the world’s largest-selling medicines. |
Kukreja’s discovery is particularly noteworthy because Viagra generally is not recommended or prescribed now to men with many types of heart problems.
Other than for treating impotence, however, little has been known about additional beneficial effects of Viagra, although clinicians and researchers worldwide have been looking for more uses for the medicine. Shortly after it was released, reports linked Viagra to sudden heart attacks and hypotension during sex in men who were taking nitroglycerin for cardiovascular disease, prompting the FDA and Pfizer to amend prescription labels to warn doctors against prescribing the drug for impotence in patients with known heart conditions.
Kukreja began looking at Viagra early this year as part of his on-going research into “preconditioning,” which is a way to protect the heart muscle from serious damage in the future by subjecting it to very brief periods of deprivation of blood flow and, therefore, oxygen. Kukreja and his colleagues at VCU’s School of Medicine have been studying preconditioning for fourteen years.
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