Viagra may offer help for enlarged hearts
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Viagra may aid in the treatment of enlarged hearts that can result from high blood pressure, tests on animals indicate.
Plans are under way for a trial to determine if similar results occur in humans given the drug widely used to treat erectile dysfunction.
The drug, known generically as sildenafil citrate, blocked and even reversed some of the heart enlargement in mice with blood pressure stress, said researchers led by Dr. David A. Kass of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“A larger-than-normal heart is a serious medical condition, known as hypertrophy, and is a common feature of heart failure that can be fatal,” Kass said.
He said the findings “suggest possible therapies in the future, including sildenafil, which has the added benefit of already being studied as safe and effective for another medical condition” — male sexual dysfunction.
The report, in Sunday’s online edition of Nature Medicine, came as no surprise to Dr. William B. White, head of the hypertension section of the University of Connecticut Health Center.
White, who was not part of Kass’ research team, noted that sildenafil originally was discovered by researchers studying blood pressure and heart disease.