Could Viagra be a Swiss Army knife of drugs, helping to cure lethal diseases such as Covid, Alzheimer’s and cancer, as well as bringing its more famous sexual benefit?
The medication’s manifold potential was highlighted this week when a respiratory nurse who had spent 28 days in a Covid coma came round after doctors gave her a large dose of the drug as part of an experimental treatment regimen.
Monica Almeida, 37-year-old mother-of-2 with asthma from Lincolnshire claims the drug helped increase blood flow. It also relaxed the walls of blood vessels.
She said she’d been just three days away from having her ventilator turned off when her condition started to improve and she woke up on December 14.
Last month researchers suggested it may help treat Alzheimer’s, reported the journal Nature Aging. U.S. investigators analysed data from seven million patients and found men taking the drug had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s over a six-year period
It’s the first time the drug has been used on a Covid patient in the UK.
Sildenafil (or Viagra, as it is commonly known) was created to relieve angina. This condition causes chest pain from restricted blood flow. In trials, sildenafil showed little benefit for angina pain, but male volunteers reported an unusual side-effect — erections. In 1998 sildenafil was approved as the first drug to treat erectile dysfunction.
It appears that it may also have other functions. Last month researchers suggested it may help treat Alzheimer’s, reported the journal Nature Aging. U.S. investigators analysed data from seven million patients and found men taking the drug had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s over a six-year period.
In laboratory tests, researchers found that sildenafil appears to target a form of protein, called tau, found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s.
High doses of the drug also increased brain-cell proliferation, according to tests. Researchers had explored whether sildenafil could be used to treat vascular dementia. Vascular dementia is when blood flows are reduced and the brain suffers from damage.
Such a benefit is more easily explained, as it comes down to the drug’s basic blood flow-boosting abilities. Sildenafil works as a vasodilator. It widens blood vessels, allowing for blood to flow freely.
Monica Almeida is a 37-year-old mother-of-2 with asthma. She claims the drug has increased blood flow and relaxed the walls of her blood vessels. She is pictured with with her husband Arthur
This is why sildenafil is also used to increase blood flow to damaged limbs, to avoid amputation, and to treat pulmonary hypertension — high blood pressure in the vessels that carry blood from the heart to the lungs. You may experience chest pain or severe shortness of breath.
Sildenafil-related compounds may reverse the signs of heart failure, according to 2019 research in the journal Scientific Reports, which showed the blood-boosting benefits ‘improved contraction in heart failure and reversed the adverse structural damage’.
Researchers in India have announced in 2020 that sildenafil-based gels can repair the damaged skin of cancer patients who are undergoing radiotherapy. The drug stimulates blood flow and releases nitric dioxide, which is a chemical that aids in wound healing.
Sildenafil could even be used to kill lung, prostate and stomach tumours. New Zealand researchers believe that sildenafil encourages cancer cells in rogue states to self-destruct. This process is called apoptosis. The journal Anti-Cancer Agents in Medicinal Chemotherapy published their findings in 2018. They found that sildenafil used in combination with chemotherapy reduces the size of tumours by up to three times as much.
A second strange result is its ability to cure jetlag. Research in rodents, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2007), showed that sildenafil is capable of altering the activity of the hormone Cyc guanosine monophosphate to shift the body clock and make it wake earlier.
Professor Gino Martini, former chief scientist for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, told Good Health sildenafil’s versatility stems from the fact ‘many of our bodies’ and brains’ biological pathways are inter-related, and what affects one pathway can affect many others’.
He adds: ‘In the case of sildenafil, these additional effects are very fortuitous, particularly as it is a drug that has been widely used and tested for safety.’
It is possible to have side effects, just like with any other drug. Sildenafil may cause symptoms to worsen in people with heart disease, strokes, or other medical conditions.
Professor Martini claims that Monica Almeida is not proof sildenafil can be used to treat severe Covidinitis.
‘The problem with the pandemic has been lots of people have been trying lots of drugs on lots of patients, and there can be random results that don’t tell us whether something truly works,’ he says.