Fact-Check: Viagra Could Help Treat Alzheimer’s Disease
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| Viagra Could Help Treat Alzheimer’s, Scientists Say |
The findings by a research team led by Cleveland Clinic Dr. Feixiong Cheng were published in “Nature Aging.”
Through a large-scale analysis of a database of more than seven million patients, the team determined sildenafil is associated with 69 percent reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of age-related dementia.
Without the development of new treatments, Alzheimer’s disease could impact 13.8 million Americans by 2050, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio conducted the study in a bid to determine which of more than 1,600 Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs could be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
Study lead Dr Feixiong Cheng explained that sildenafil, which is branded as Viagra, was ‘shown to significantly improve cognition and memory in preclinical models’, therefore presenting as ‘the best drug candidate’ for treating Alzheimer’s.
The results showed that after six years of follow-up, sildenafil users were 69% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than non-sildenafil users.
How Viagra might influence Alzheimer’s disease?
The team conducted a complex computational study using big data and AI to capture the biological signature of Alzheimer’s disease and determine multiple molecular targets to treat it.
They then tested 1600 FDA-approved drugs to see which interacted with the targets. Sildenafil (Viagra) was assigned one of the top scores, suggesting it might influence Alzheimer’s.
Next, they analysed insurance claims data from more than 7 million Americans and found the prescription of sildenafil was associated with a 69 per cent reduction in the risk of Alzheimer’s diagnosis after six years of follow-up.
The team then offered insights into how the drug might influence disease-related brain changes by developing a lab model that showed sildenafil increased brain cell growth and targeted tau proteins.
The team used computational methodology to screen and validate FDA-approved drugs as potential therapies for the disease, the release states.
“This paper is an example of a growing area of research in precision medicine where big data is key to connecting the dots between existing drugs and a complex disease like Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Jean Yuan, program director of Translational Bioinformatics and Drug Development at the National Institute on Aging. “This is one of many efforts we are supporting to find existing drugs or available safe compounds for other conditions that would be good candidates for Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials.”
Trial to Confirm Benefits
This was after adjusting for sex, race and age, particularly as sildenafil is mainly used to treat erectile dysfunction in men.
It is also used to treat pulmonary hypertension, a type of high blood pressure that causes shortness of breath, dizziness and fatigue.
Cheng said the team is now planning a trial and phase II randomized clinical trial to confirm benefits for Alzheimer’s patients. They hope the approach is applied to other neurodegenerative diseases in the future.
Dr Ivan Koychev, a senior clinical researcher at the University of Oxford, has noted that the results are an ‘exciting development’. Koychev noted the findings point ‘to a specific drug which may offer a new approach to treating the condition’.
Although promising, the authors cautioned the results did not translate into Viagra being an immediate treatment for Alzheimer’s. They suggested future research should explore more focused ways to harness the drug’s mechanism.
Potential links between Viagra and Alzheimer
For more than a decade, researchers around the world have been looking at potential links between Viagra-type drugs and Alzheimer’s.
In 2009, a study in the Journal of Neuroscience gave mice with Alzheimer’s some Viagra and found it sharpened their memories and reduced the plaque in their brains.
Blood flow in their brains was better and this led to improvements in the way the neurons transmitted messages, in behaviour and in plaque pathology.
The authors of the 2009 study said this was just “a proof of concept” and for humans, smarter forms of these drugs, with better brain penetration, would be needed.
Then, in 2011, a study in the British Journal of Pharmacology suggested that Viagra restored cognitive function without affecting the plaque burden in mice with Alzheimer’s.
In 2017, a study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease suggested a single dose of Viagra improved the dynamics of blood flow in the brain and increased brain oxygen metabolism in people with the disease.
Three years later, the same journal published a systematic review of evidence on the link, and looked in laboratory studies, 10 rodent studies, another systematic review, and two pilot studies in patients.
Treatments for Alzheimer'sThe latest development in treatments for Alzheimer's came over the summer. In June, the FDA gave conditional approved the drug Aduhelm (aducanumab), the first new medication to treat patients with Alzheimer’s disease in nearly two decades. But about a month after it was approved, U.S. health regulators signed off on new prescribing instructions that are likely to limit its use, according to AP. The new drug label emphasized that Aduhelm is appropriate for patients with mild or early-stage Alzheimer's but has not been studied in patients with more advanced disease. This caused confusion and hesitation from physicians nationwide, and many places like the Cleveland Clinic came out and said it would not be administering the drug until it has been studied further. In June, the health news site Stat reported several new revelations about the unusually close collaboration between Aduhelm drugmaker Biogen and FDA's drug review staff. In particular, the site reported an undocumented meeting in May 2019 between a top Biogen executive and the FDA's lead reviewer for Alzheimer's drugs. |
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