Men on Viagra may reduce their Alzheimer's risk – study

The study is called &quot;Phosphodiesterase Type 5 Inhibitors in Men With Erectile Dysfunction and the Risk of Alzheimer Disease&quot; and published in &quot;Neurology&quot;, for reference. It&#x27;s open access, link: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1212&#x2F;WNL.0000000000209131" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1212&#x2F;WNL.0000000000209131</a>

<i>So</i> many possible confounding factors. Men in partnerships are healthier, for one. There&#x27;s also possible selection bias!<p>Edit based on comment below: possibly I am too cynical :-D

Or these men simply lead more active lives with regular exercise. Hard to tell.

Maybe the brain get&#x27;s worse at clearing stuff out as your blood vessels age and viagra is opening them up? Cardio, weight lifting, HIIT, sauna, healthy balanced diet, yoga, inversions, beetroot juice, citrulline malate, etc. could all be worthy of investigation ;-)

Viagra is a medication used to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension. Better blood flow is one of the results.

Can someone explain how the study could successfully adjust for men in relationships taking this kind of med vs (especially) long time single men who don&#x27;t?<p>Especially in older men, these groups can look nothing like each other.

It&#x27;s a vasodilator, which is means it also reduces blood pressure (that was the drug&#x27;s original purpose).<p>So it&#x27;s conceivable that it could clear a wider exit pathway for amyloid plaques and other garbage that accumulates in the brain.<p>It&#x27;s also why a significant fraction of men who take it develop headaches so painful that sex is the last thing on their mind. Welcome to vasodilators.<p>Oh and if you already take nitroglycerin for cardiac angina, you can&#x27;t take viagra because you get <i>twice</i> the headache -- right before you pass out because your blood pressure crashed.

is it safe to assume,<p>that this ffect is rue for taladafil&#x2F;sindemafil based pills?

It&#x27;s all the cardio, bro. Mystery solved. Next!

We should make a vaccine instead of repurposing established drugs amirite?

Please let&#x27;s make a downvote free thread for throwing jokes a round on this topic. We need this freedom for such a topic trending on HN.<p>There is so much low hanging fruit and we&#x27;re all thinking of several I suspect. My initial thought was in the lane of &#x27;drug is affecting one more head than intended&#x27;, but it&#x27;s missing some refinement I&#x27;ll admit