Sildenafil (agent for potency)

2022: Brazilian Armed Forces purchased 35,000 Viagra packages

In mid-April 2022, congressman in Brazil Elias Vaz said that as a result of a freedom of information request, he received information that the government of President Jair Bolsonaro approved an order for 35 thousand pills for erectile dysfunction for the armed forces of the state.

On April 11, 2022, the Brazilian military came under tight scrutiny after one of the lawmakers said that they had purchased Viagra tablets for the military, which caused a flurry of jokes on social networks. In the documents that Congressman Elias Vaz received, the drug itself is not mentioned by the name of Viagra, but the documents say that the order was made for sildenafil, the active ingredient of the drug.

Brazilian armed forces purchased 35,000 Viagra packages

Elias Vaz also said that a medical drug is needed to treat erection disorders characterized by an inability to achieve or maintain a penile erection sufficient for satisfactory intercourse. Vaz added that Sildenafil is effective only if there is sexual stimulation, so he is perplexed for what purposes a state order was made for the armed forces, calling this purchase immoral.

The Brazilian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the pills were actually for the treatment of patients with pulmonary hypertension, or elevated blood pressure in the lungs, which is another use of sildenafil.

In 2021, Brazil adopted a National Anti-Corruption Strategy, a programme designed to systematize and improve existing mechanisms for the prevention, detection and prosecution of corruption offences, and to ensure coordination among the various public authorities with separate responsibilities in this area.

According to the publication zdrav.expert, a study conducted by scientists in Great Britain and France in the mid-1980s confirmed that Viagra can be used to treat diseases of the cardiovascular system and lower blood pressure in the lungs. After a series of experiments, during which male volunteers were artificially raised blood pressure in the lungs, placing the first group in low oxygen conditions, and the second introduced sildenafil. As a result, it turned out that the blood pressure in the lungs of the subjects from the second group practically did not rise. Active active ingredient sildenafil, whose mechanism of action allows preventing or suppressing unwanted increase of blood pressure.^[1]

2021: Viagra reduces dementia risks by 69%

In early December 2021, a study led by the Cleveland Clinic named sildenafil (a drug for increasing potency; the most popular brand using it is Viagra) a promising candidate for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

The research team, led by Ph.D. Feyshionga Chen of the Cleveland Clinic Institute of Genomic Medicine, used a computational methodology to select and validate approved medications as potential therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease, according to results published in the journal Nature Aging. After conducting a large-scale database analysis of more than 7 million patients, the researchers determined that sildenafil use was associated with a 69% reduction in the incidence of Alzheimer's disease.

Viagra reduces dementia risks by 69%

Dr. Cheng's team found that understanding subtypes, endophenotypes, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease could help identify common underlying mechanisms and lead to the discovery of effective drug repurposing targets. The accumulation of beta-amyloid and tau proteins in the brain leads to the formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles of tau, two hallmarks of brain changes associated with Alzheimer's disease. The number and location of these proteins in the brain may help determine endophenotypes. However, as of December 2021, there are no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved antiamyloid or anti-tau drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease with small molecules, and many clinical trials of such drugs have not been successful since 2011.

This work is an example of a growing field of research in precision medicine, where big data are key to establishing a link between existing drugs and a complex disease like Alzheimer's disease. This is one of many supported attempts to find existing drugs or affordable safe compounds for other diseases that could be good candidates for clinical trials of the disease, said Jean Yuan, MD, director of the translational bioinformatics and drug development program at the National Institute for Aging.

Using a large gene mapping network, the researchers integrated genetic and other biological data to determine which of the more than 1.6 thousand drugs approved in the US could become an effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Scientists have determined that drugs that affect both amyloid and tau have higher rates compared to drugs that affect only one or the other component. Included in the analysis were patients taking comparison drugs who were either in an active clinical trial of Alzheimer's disease, losartan or metformin, or had not yet been declared as relevant to disease, diltiazem or glimepiride.^[2]

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