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Tests on mice show that Viagra may be useful for treating enlarged
hearts in humans
07 February 2005
A recent tests performed on mice shows that Viagra
may be useful both for preventing hypertrophy, an enlarging and
thickening of the heart muscle, and helping to cure this disease
that can eventually lead to heart failure. Related articles on this
topic are also available on the NewsTarget Network, including: Viagra
Now Being Increasingly Used as a Recreational Drug By Younger Men:
Is Pfizer Responsible?.
- Viagra, the drug most often associated with restoring male sexual powers, may play an entirely different role in treating enlarged hearts.
- In male mice, sildenafil citrate (the generic name for Viagra) successfully treated enlargement and thickening of the heart, not only stopping further growth of the heart muscle, but also actually reversing the growth and damage that had already taken place.
- "By treating mice with Viagra in doses that would be similar to what a person would get, we found that we could block hypertrophy [enlarging and thickening of the heart muscles] and could prevent progression to heart failure," said study co-author Dr. Hunter Champion, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
- The findings, which will be published in the February issue of Nature Medicine, represent a "clinical home run," as Stein put it.
- Approximately 65 million Americans have high blood pressure or hypertension, which can lead to cardiac hypertrophy, a thickening of the heart muscle brought on because the heart has to pump harder to get its job done.
- After two weeks, fibrosis and muscle growth almost completely disappeared in the mice given Viagra while hearts continued to grow in the control mice.
- Viagra works, both in the heart and the penis, by inhibiting an enzyme called PDE5A.
- In the penis, however, PDE5A relaxes the smooth muscle, allowing the blood to flow and nature to resume its course.
"A boxer with just one jab in his repertoire is going to lose the fight, but if you have a good right jab, left jab and uppercut, you're going to be a much better fighter."
- The American Heart Association has more on cardiac hypertrophy and other forms of cardiomyopathy.
source:-http://www.newstarget.com |
