Think Viagra is just a “fun” drug? It turns out that Viagra has many important medical uses that have nothing to do with erectile dysfunction (ED). One potential use is in preventing blood clot formation around implanted coronary stents.
Designed to keep coronary and other key arteries open after they’ve been cleared through angioplasty, stents can be lifesavers. But in some cases they have the opposite effect, becoming sites where new and life-threatening blood clots can form, causing new health problems.
In recent years, some stents have been coated with medications designed to help prevent the formation of a new clot, while others are simply metallic or plastic tubes that are expanded to conform to the inner lining of the blood vessel being treated. However, blood clots sometimes form at the site of both treated and untreated stents.
South Koreans Study Restenosis
To find ways to prevent recurrent narrowing or clotting at the site of a previous clog, a condition known as restenosis, a team of South Korean researchers has been looking into the effects of treating stents with sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. In its use as a therapy for erectile dysfunction, sildenafil expands arteries, optimizing blood flow to the penis.
Promising preliminary findings from the South Korean research program were presented in July at the American Heart Association’s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2017 Scientific Sessions in Portland, Oregon. Early findings, drawn primarily from laboratory and animal testing, showed that stents treated with sildenafil helped reduce the incidence of arterial narrowing and blood clot formation in previously treated arteries that were stented.
How Sildenafil Performed
South Korean researchers reported that:
- sildenafil reduced the clumping of platelets by 30 percent in laboratory tests;
- sildenafil given to rats helped increase the activity of an enzyme known as protein kinase G, or PKG, a substance that helps prevent the thickening of artery walls when given after injury to an artery, a response similar to what might happen after the placement of a stent; and
- the activation of the PKG pathway is key to sildenafil’s ability to prevent restenosis, because trauma to a blood vessel, such as might occur after implantation of stent, otherwise reduces PKG activity, thus increasing the clumping of platelets and the thickening of artery walls.
Sildenafil Treats a Variety of Ills
While arguably best known as the active ingredient in Viagra, the first of the oral ED drugs to be introduced, sildenafil citrate has proved that it is very versatile and has been used to treat a variety of other ills. It has long been used in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH, which occurs when pulmonary arterioles, tiny arteries in the lungs, become blocked or damaged. This increases blood pressure within the lungs sharply. Pfizer’s brand-name drug Revatio is prescribed to treat PAH.
Sildenafil has also been successfully used to treat altitude sickness and to improve athletic performance at high altitudes, and it’s also been used to improve pulmonary function in premature babies. Additionally, congestive heart failure patients who were given sildenafil were able to exercise and resume sexual activity when the drug lowered both their heart rate and blood pressure. Researchers have also reported that sildenafil, given in combination with chemotherapeutic medications, helps to trigger the body’s immune response, helping those anticancer drugs to more effectively attack cancerous tissue.
Could Be ‘an Ideal Drug’
In a news release issued at the time of the presentation at the AHA conference, the study’s lead author Han-Mo Yang, an associate professor at Seoul National University Hospital, expressed optimism that these results can be replicated in humans. “If similar results are found in clinical trials,” he said, “sildenafil could be an ideal drug for coating drug-eluting stents or to give orally after stent implantation.”
A Daily Mail article noted that news of the South Korean research findings comes on the heels of other reports of sildenafil’s ability to help treat patients with heart problems. The article’s author pointed to a Manchester University study, published in 2016, that showed men taking Viagra had a lower risk of dying than those who were not on the medication. And in early 2017, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet reported that taking sildenafil after a heart attack reduces the risk of dying from any cause by a whopping 33 percent. The Swedish study’s findings were based on long-term observation of roughly 43,000 patients.
Properties of PDE5 Inhibitors
Sildenafil belongs to a family of medications known collectively as PDE5 inhibitors, so called because they temporarily sideline the phosphodiesterase-5 enzyme that can interfere with robust blood flow to the penis. Most erectile dysfunction stems from an insufficient blood flow to the penis. Taking sildenafil or one of the other PDE5 inhibitors optimizes blood flow from four to 36 hours, depending on the specific PDE5 inhibitor that is taken. Other PDE5 inhibitors include tadalafil, the active ingredient in Cialis, vardenafil in both Levitra and Staxyn, and avanafil in Stendra.
Obviously, clinical testing will be needed to determine whether the South Korean study’s results can be successfully replicated in humans. Meanwhile, men who need help in overcoming erection problems and are cleared by their doctors to engage in sexual activity can continue to use Viagra to treat their ED symptoms and perhaps derive additional health benefits as well.
Available Only by Prescription
Viagra, as well as all the other oral ED medications, are only available by prescription in the United States. If you have a prescription from your regular doctor, you can get it filled at your local neighborhood pharmacy or opt instead to order the drug online from a reputable provider, such as eDrugstore.com.
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For those who do not yet have a doctor’s prescription and would prefer not to discuss these sensitive sexual health matters with their regular doctor, eDrugstore.com can arrange a complimentary online consultation with one of its team of licensed U.S. physicians. To take advantage of this offer, you will need to fill out a questionnaire that covers your current symptoms, long-term medical history, and lists all prescription and OTC drugs you’re taking. If eDrugstore’s doctor deems it appropriate, he or she will authorize a prescription for Viagra or the ED drug of your choice.
Based in Tempe, Arizona, eDrugstore is part of the Secure Medical family of online drugstores and has been serving online customers since 1998. It sells only FDA-approved medications, all of which are sourced from licensed U.S. pharmacies. Its prices are comparable with those you’d pay at most retail pharmacy chains. To learn more about erection problems and the drugs available to treat them, click here to access eDrugstore’s Erection Problems page.
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