Viagra may help with heart therapy

WASHINGTON – 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 Kass of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

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, said sildenafil originally was discovered by researchers studying blood pressure and heart disease.

The drug, however, is effective only for a short time, he said. It would need to be longer acting to be useful in treating heart enlargement, White said.

Sildenafil has proved useful in erectile dysfunction because PDE5A also is involved in the relaxation of blood vessels in the penis.