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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
The impotence drug Viagra may help ward off type 2 diabetes in people already at risk for the illness, a small new trial suggests.The study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, found that Viagra (sildenafil) improved "insulin sensitivity" in overweight, pre-diabetic people. Insulin sensitivity involves the body's ability to efficiently use the hormone.Small trialThe erectile dysfunction drug was also tied to a lowering of levels of a marker associated with a raised risk of heart and kidney disease, the researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.Read: 15 ways to prevent or manage diabetesHowever, the trial was small with just 42 patients and "further studies will be needed to determine whether long-term treatment with drugs like sildenafil can prevent the onset of diabetes in high-risk patients", study lead author Dr Nancy Brown said in a journal news release.Brown and her colleagues at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville tracked outcomes for 42 overweight men and women with pre-diabetes.All of the patients were randomly assigned to take Viagra (25 milligrams, three times per day) or an inactive placebo for three months.By the end of that time, those in the Viagra group were more sensitive to insulin and also had lower levels of albumin in their urine (a marker of heart and kidney disease risk) than those in the placebo group, the researchers found.Without treatment, as many as 30 percent of people with pre-diabetes go on to develop type 2 diabetes within five years, Brown's team pointed
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