Men Taking PDE-5 Inhibitors to Treat Erectile Dysfunction Have Lower Risk of Heart Disease

Men with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) enjoying the benefits of phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE-5) inhibitors, such as Viagra or sildenafil, to treat erectile dysfunction stand to gain an even more worthwhile benefit-lesser risk for a worsened heart ailment.

In a Swedish registry study published in the Journal of the American College Of Cardiology, men taking these inhibitors for their erectile dysfunction (ED) would less likely have a myocardial infarction (MI), coronary revascularization, or heart failure than those ED patients who are receiving alprostadil.

PDE-5 Erectile Dysfunction Treatment Lowers Heart Disease Risk

With impotence becoming a massive problem among older men who had suffered from CAD, these findings prove to be a huge blessing for the age demographic as it further lowers their risk of further heart illness.

Experts see this perk was due to sildenafil's capability to reduce blood pressure, which is a potent risk factor for heart disease, a HealthLine report said.

This research team had a previous study that showed a significant mortality benefit of PDE5 inhibitors for men with a first MI, as with a British analysis of men with Type 2 diabetes. But these studies had compared the treatments with men not taking ED drugs that may have led to confounding by indication.

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The study included around 240,000 Swedish men who had a prior MI or revascularization. An estimated 20,000 who also underwent coronary bypass surgery or percutaneous coronary intervention were also being treated for ED in that group. A large majority of this group were on PDE5 inhibitors, and the remainder were on alprostadil, which is applied locally through injection, urethral suppository, or cream.

During the course of 15 years of follow-up with the patients, 14% of them succumbed to any cause in the PDE5 group, while 26% died in the alprostadil group.

Glaring Difference Between PDE-5 vs. Alprostadil Study Groups

The study also revealed that men on alprostadil had a bigger probability of getting afflicted with cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stroke, and diabetes. Those on PDE5, on the other hand, show glaringly lower rates, up to half of the group population, of mortality of any cause, especially from cardiovascular diseases.

Conservative interpretation of findings shows that the observed variance in the two study groups' baseline characteristics would suggest unnoticed differences not covered by the statistics, including the body mass index or smoking status.

Researchers exerted their best effort with the data that was available, which showed some evidence of a dose-response effect, with the male patients who had completed more PDE5-inhibitor prescriptions enjoying a lower risk than those who did less. This also becomes credible in a biological manner, given that PDE5s had been initially formulated as antihypertensive and antianginal treatments. This effect on ED patients turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

As such, having such PDE5 inhibitors would certainly give ED patients more than what they've asked for.