A US study found that Viagra could be useful against Alzheimer's disease.
Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are affected by Alzheimer's disease. There is no effective treatment for mounting numbers of cases.
The Cleveland Clinic used a large network of genes and other data to determine which of the FDA-approved drugs could be used to treat Alzheimer's disease. They gave higher scores to drugs that target both amyloid and tau, which are hallmarks of Alzheimer's.
The study lead said thatSildenafil was the best drug candidate because it had been shown to improve memory and cognitive function. The brand name of the drug is Viagra.
The researchers used a database of claims from more than 7 million people in the US to examine the relationship between the drug and Alzheimer's disease outcomes.
After six years of follow-up, they found that users of the drug were less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. The lab model that was developed showed that the drug increased brain cell growth and targeted the brain inflammation factor, which may be related to Alzheimer's disease. Nature Aging published the findings.
Cheng cautions that the study does not show a relationship between the two. He said that randomized clinical trials were needed to determine the efficacy of the drug.
Dr Ivan Koychev, a senior clinical researcher at the University of Oxford, who was not involved in the study, said it was an exciting development because it points to a specific drug which may offer a new approach to treating the condition.
There are several important limitations to consider, according to Prof Tara Spires-Jones, deputy director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. I wouldn't rush out to start taking the drug for Alzheimer's disease, based on the data from the study.
The director of research at Alzheimer's Research UK said that being able to reuse a drug already licensed for other health conditions could help speed up the drug discovery process and bring about life-changing dementia treatments sooner.
This research doesn't prove that the drug is responsible for reducing dementia risk or that it slows or stops the disease. The only way to test this would be in a large-scale clinical trial.
