Posted on 02/03/2022 4:47:15 AM PST by fluorescence
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. It is expected to affect 16 million Americans by 2050. The hallmarks of AD are amyloid plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. Efforts to develop new drugs that directly target amyloid or tau proteins haven’t yielded significant clinical benefits for patients. Another approach to developing AD treatments would be to seek existing drugs that could potentially be repurposed.
A team of researchers led by Dr. Feixiong Cheng at the Cleveland Clinic developed a computational method for identifying FDA-approved drugs that might be effective against AD. NIH’s National Institute of Aging (NIA) supported the study. Results appeared in Nature Aging on December 6, 2021.
The researchers began by identifying genes associated with AD pathology. Then they constructed a network of molecular interactions connecting these genes. They focused on the subset of genes associated with both amyloid plaques and tau tangles, instead of one or the other. They also constructed networks of drugs and their molecular targets for more than 1,600 FDA-approved drugs. Then they calculated the relationships between each drug’s targets and the AD network components.
The team identified 66 drugs with the closest relationships to AD-associated genes. Many are already being tested in ongoing AD clinical trials, proving the soundness of the approach. After considering other factors, the top candidate was sildenafil, also known by the brand names Viagra and Revatio. Sildenafil is FDA-approved to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension.
Next, the team analyzed insurance claims data from more than 7 million Americans. They found that the people (mostly men) who took sildenafil were 69% less likely to develop AD over 6 years than those who did not take the drug. This association between sildenafil and AD held after adjusting for sex, age, and other diseases and conditions.
To understand how sildenafil might affect AD, the researchers grew neurons from stem cells derived from AD patients. Exposing the cells to sildenafil led to increased growth of neurites, which connect neurons to each other, and decreased tau phosphorylation, an early biomarker of AD.
Taken together, these results show an association between sildenafil use and reduced AD risk. But the researchers emphasize that they haven’t shown that sildenafil prevents or reverses AD. There may be other factors responsible for the association.
“Because our findings only establish an association between sildenafil use and reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease, we are now planning a mechanistic trial and a phase II randomized clinical trial to test causality and confirm sildenafil’s clinical benefits for Alzheimer’s patients,” Cheng explains.
“This is one of many efforts we are supporting to find existing drugs or available safe compounds for other conditions that would be good candidates for Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials,” says Dr. Jean Yuan, a program director at NIA. Repurposing existing drugs could save time and costs of bringing AD therapies to patients.
I may have heard that before, but it’s hard to remember where.
Curious as to how making the non-thinking head bigger helps with dementia.
NIH huh ?
They seem to be interested in all things sexual. Wonder if they also supplied Viagra to kiddies.
This same NIH ...
a taxpayer-funded
National Institutes of Health
study recruited boys (and girls who identified as boys) as young as 13 to report their sexual behavior on a mobile app without parental consent. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
NIH-funded
researchers at Columbia University
offer up to $275
to gay and transgender boys, between the ages of 13 and 18, to document their sexual activity on MyPEEPS Mobile, including whether they have “condomless anal sex.
.
Viagra release nitric oxide into the blood stream where it narrows arteries and cause blood to flow faster.
Eating large amounts of spinach has also shown to do the same thing and actually help distance athletes to improve their times by 3%-5%
How much Spinach do you need to see the benefit? The whole can like Popeye?
But what about the 4 hour thing?
Maybe it’s the sex act itself not the Viagra
I have heard Viagra is already being used as a treatment for sunburn. So far no sign it cures the sunburn. but it does keep the sheets off your legs.
” seek existing drugs that could potentially be repurposed”
So ya can do it for an old man to get a boner, but Hydroxy and Horse Paste are not to be looked at for off-label use, to maybe save millions of lives?
OK. That seems like “Science” to me.
/s
Send the Current Resident a box of viagra.
^^^^^-— Is just here to ready witty comments.
Well, he is a dick, so good idea.
Correlation is not causality, and “associated with” is deliberately confusing. It’s possible that the people who don’t have dementia are more interested in sex than people with dementia. Those who are interested, take viagra. The others have bigger worries and don’t take viagra.
That would be child abuse.
Then he would have a place to hang his box of ice cream.
Viagra assists with blood flow - that could help the brain cleanse itself... Viagra’s also a COVID treatment - pushes increase blood flow to lungs.
So more sex for them, but they will now also remember it.
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