In addition to boosting a flagging sex life, Viagra can also protect against heart attacks and heart failures, says a study from the U.K.'s University of Manchester. Researchers found that diabetic patients who took Viagra had a lower risk of suffering a heart attack or dying from heart failure than those who didn't take the drug.
Viagra, also known as sildenafil citrate, is normally used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) by increasing blood flow to the penis. It works by inhibiting an enzyme called PDE5, which prevents smooth tissue from relaxing.
The study, which will be published in the journal
BMJ Heart, involved 6,000 diabetic men who had been prescribed Viagra for ED. Researchers found that they had a much lower risk of having a heart attack or dying from heart failure than men who didn't take the pill, according to the
Daily Express.
The current study isn't the only research to find that Viagra may be good for the heart. A 2014 study published in the journal
BMC Medicine found that Viagra can prevent heart muscle from thickening and early stage heart failure.
Heart failure is usually caused by a heart attack that damages the heart and interferes with its ability to pump blood. There is no medicine that controls it, and there is no cure.
"Heart failure is a devastating condition which means your heart is not pumping blood around your body as well as it used to," researcher Andrew Trafford told the
Daily Express. "It can really impact a person's quality of life and currently the outlook for patients with heart failure is grim — worse than that of some cancers.
"Our studies have shown that drugs normally used for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, such as Viagra, actually have a very pronounced effect in slowing the progression of heart failure as well as reducing the likelihood of fatal arrhythmias.
"We have recently established that patients who receive Viagra or similar drugs for erectile dysfunction are also far less likely to then go on and die from a heart attack," he said.
The Manchester researchers are also studying whether or not Viagra can also help prevent the abnormal heart rhythms called arrhythmias, which kill up to half of patients with heart failure.