Dating may not be the only thing that Viagra prolongs.
At least that’s what scientists think.
Sildenafil, the powerful chemical that gives men erections, could have a “beneficial effect on lifespan”, say French and Swiss researchers.
Men prescribed Impotence drugs were found to be 15 percent less likely to die in the study which looked at 40 years of data.
The apparent life-prolonging effects were so clear that the team said the results “warranted further investigation.”
Millions of British men are now taking medication to combat impotence. The latest data supported by the NHS shows that 22 million such prescriptions for these drugs were issued by GPs in England between 2019 and 2023 at a cost of £91 million (stock image)
The medical records of around 500,000 Britons were analyzed as part of the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed – the process which irons out flaws in the methodology.
Armed with this data, experts from the biotechnology start-up EPITERNA were able to identify the potential health effects linked to certain drugs.
Most of the more than 400 drugs evaluated, including the antibiotic amoxicillin and the cholesterol drug simvastatin, had a “negative” effect on lifespan.
For example, morphine, an opioid painkiller, was associated with a 456% increased risk of death during the study.
The researchers, working alongside experts from the universities of Zurich, Lausanne and Toulouse Hospital, said this was “probably due to the underlying negative effect of the disease for which the drug is intended” .
Conversely, experts haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact reason why the little blue pill might help people live longer.
However, they pointed to recent studies highlighting how sildenafil may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as heart disease, as potential factors.
Similar longevity benefits were also seen with atorvastatin, naproxen, and estradiol.
In their preprint, the team said: “These retrospective results warrant further investigation in randomized controlled trials. »
The researchers used data from the UK Biobank. The patients were aged 37 to 73 years. Only 46 percent were men.
They had to have been prescribed a medication for at least three months for it to be included in the data, although it was not clear how often patients would take the medication.
The patients were compared individually to a “control” with the same health problems but not taking the same medication, allowing scientists to compare any differences.
The researchers did not detail the average number of years they followed the patients in the study.
While the researchers looked at several medications, they only looked at men who had been prescribed sildenafil.
The researchers said it was impossible to determine whether healthy people taking sildenafil would benefit from the same longevity effects seen in their study.
It also could not be determined why the patients were taking sildenafil.
Although popular as an impotence medication, sildenafil is also used by men and women who suffer from pulmonary hypertension – a type of high blood pressure in the arteries that supply blood to the lungs.
The same process by which the medication increases blood flow to the penis also relaxes the blood vessels in the chest to help treat the condition.
The scientists behind the study also said the dataset did not take into account other factors that may have increased a patient’s life expectancy, such as diet or exercise.
This graph shows the results of sildenafil on patient mortality. The X axis shows the age of a patient while the Y axis shows the chances of survival. The blue line represents patients taking the drug, while the black line shows results for people not taking the drug.
Sildenafil became an over-the-counter medication in the UK in 2018.
The study comes a week after MailOnline revealed that popular erection pills such as Viagra and Cialis have been linked to more than 200 deaths in Britain.
None of the deaths – all of which have occurred since 1998 – were caused directly by drugs.
Experts also insisted the pills are safe and that many incidents could actually reflect sex-related deaths among men with heart problems.
Men can buy sildenafil and other impotence pills over the counter for just £15. The tablets are also available online for as little as £1.30 per pill.
Millions of British men are now taking medication to combat impotence.
The latest data supported by the NHS shows that 22 million prescriptions for these drugs were issued by GPs in England between 2019 and 2023, at a cost of £91 million.
Doctors already know that drugs like sildenafil can be dangerous in certain circumstances.
For example, people with known heart problems are advised to avoid taking them.
Even leaflets distributed with sildenafil acknowledge cases of sudden death in men who have taken the drug, although they insist that such cases are rare and mainly affect men with heart problems.
“It is not possible to determine whether these events were directly related to sildenafil,” he also adds.
Adverse effects related to impotence medications have already been reported in the medical literature.
MailOnline reported last month how a Brazilian man suffered an unprecedented reaction which saw him develop pustules all over his body after taking tadalafil, sold as Cialis in the UK.
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Other reports have linked taking sildenafil to eye problems, including vision loss.
No medication is without risk and erectile dysfunction pills are no exception.
The NHS says that around one in 100 people will experience common side effects from taking sildenafil, the UK’s most prescribed erectile dysfunction drug.
These include headache, nausea, flushing, indigestion, stuffy nose and dizziness, according to the NHS.
The health service warns that people who take the pills for long periods, for example for pulmonary hypertension, are more likely to suffer from them than those who take the pills for erectile dysfunction.
More serious side effects requiring urgent medical attention are estimated to affect fewer than 1 in 1,000 people.
These include seizures, a prolonged and potentially painful erection, especially lasting more than two hours, chest pain, and, in very rare cases, a life-threatening allergic reaction to the drug called anaphylaxis.