A three-month study
The Vanderbilt University School of Medicine study followed 42 men and women who were overweight and considered pre-diabetic. Some of the participants took 25 mg of Viagra three times a day for three months, while others took an inactive placebo.
At the end of the three months, the group that had been taken Viagra was more sensitive to insulin (a good thing) and had less albumin (an indicator of heart and kidney disease risk) in their urine (also a good thing).
The latter result was important because current drugs being used to prevent type 2 diabetes can harm the heart or kidneys.
How Viagra works on type 2 diabetes
As with its use for erectile dysfunction (ED), Viagra works by stopping a particular enzyme from breaking down cGMP, a chemical that relaxes blood vessels.
Viagra, and other popular ED drugs like Levitra and Cialis, not only help with impotence, but also on the inner lining of blood vessels. In previous studies, these drugs have affected insulin resistance and blood sugar metabolism, though the studies were done on animals, or on humans, but on a very small scale.
While these studies and the Vanderbilt study make researchers hopeful, they are only initial indicators, not proof, of the ability of ED drugs to ward off type 2 diabetes.
More research, including larger, longer studies will need to be done to determine if Viagra (and Cialis or Levitra) are viable diabetes prevention drugs.
In the meantime, researchers are scrambling to find ways to treat the increasing number of diabetic children and adults who have type 2 diabetes. According to Health.com, without treatment, up to 30% of people with pre-diabetes will develop type 2 diabetes within five years.
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