It's the third option: I guess we all know it's not the viagra, but I would suggest it's also not the sex but rather what is associated with a lifestyle that includes the potential for sex: a lifestyle with connection, a partner and possibly friends. A bigger social group is pretty tightly related to better health outcomes
We don't know any such things. Viagra has effects that could provide a plausible mechanism for a direct causal link. The article in particular points out that it directly interacts with amyloid and tau proteins, that are frequently implicated in Alzheimer's, and that they've explored it's effect on tau in vitro.
That of course is not proof of a causal link, but it's enough to justify follow up research.
Hence why it requires further research before we can claim causality. My point was simply that assuming we "know" the causal link is something else is also unjustified without further research.
Especially given the size of the effect combined with the known interactions between Viagra and Tau proteins.
A comparison with Cialis might well be worth it down the line, but I don't see what it'd give before they've established whether or not there's a causal link.
That could be very easy to prove right or wrong: if it's the sex, then the wives of men taking viagra should be less likely to develop alzheimer's themselves.
Well, yeah, but those men could be really healthy if at an advanced age they don't need viagra?
My grandpa whom I've never caught lying, told me that in WW2 Romania, as a very young conscript, he was given a medical examination... consisting of the nurse fondling his junk.
Apparently they decided very fast he was healthy and the same for every other conscript, except for the only son of an aristocrat(most were tough peasants such as my grandpa) who would not get an errection.
A couple of weeks later, that young man who did not pass the "physical exam" got really ill and only my grandpa took pitty enough to carry him on his back to a hospital, where they guy died a couple of days later.
The neurological effect of physical intimacy are probably second to none.. surely it triggers a massive positive side effect on your neurons everytime it happens.
Would be interesting to see what the effect with tadalafil is. Sildenafil is rather short acting while tadalafil is much longer acting. Tadalafil is also used in smaller but daily doses as a treatment for benign prostrate hyperplasia, so there should be more data on longer durations of use and effect.
> Sildenafil is more often prescribed to wealthy people and low socioeconomic status is associated with higher risk of Alzheimer’s.
> There are other possible explanations for these findings; for example, we know that brain changes start decades before dementia symptoms and it is possible that these early Alzheimer’s changes reduce sex drive (thus people wouldn’t ask for a prescription for erectile dysfunction). [...] They did try to control for this by looking into patients with pulmonary hypertension, which is sometimes treated with sildenafil. However, this group did not have a statistically significant decreased risk in Alzheimer’s disease.
> people who take sildenafil have less serious cardiovascular damage than those who are taking the other drugs to combat hypertension or diabetes. If cardiovascular damage is a key causal factor in developing Alzheimer’s disease, then these people might anyway be at an advantage compared to people who have to take drugs for hypertension, cardiovascular disease or diabetes. The study tried to control for this, but it is not clear if severity of the different conditions controlled for could be taken into account (those with more severe hypertension are presumably more likely to be taking anti-hypertensive medication such as losartan).
Many of the opinions are quite positive though, and praise the high sophistication of the statistical methods.
This is very interesting. The article points out twice that there is no evidence it's causal, but does proposr some potential causal mechanisms, all told a pretty reasonable summary of the finding.
I'm curious to know if there is any info related to alzheimers and sex drive. The 70% is based on chance developing alzheimers in the next six years, I wonder if there is any relation between a profile who would seek Viagra - I guess that would be people interested in sex, have an available partner, but having trouble - and one who would be less likely to get alzheimers soon.
I have a funny/sad/gross anecode: my flat neighbor had alzheimer's and I helped his wife for a few years, but really nothing much/special -- just getting him out of bed or off the toilet when he wouldn't budge (I can only imagine what his wife went through).
But very frequently when he was on the toilet he would play with his erm... sword and unsheathe it (Easter Europe, I'm cut, he wasn't) and his wife asked me why he did that?
And I was like.... "erm.... I think that question is overdue by about 40 years.."
Having a partner might lower the risk of Alzheimer's because having someone to talk to keeps your mind in a working condition. But also, taking Viagra means you are more likely to have sex and having sex might be the thing brain needs for "exercise".
I find it somewhat hilarious to think that soon the Covid vaccine infomercials might be extended with "To keep you safe also remember to have sex" .
Or: Developing Alzheimer's makes you less interested in sex, makes your partner less interested in sex with you (possibly via creating problems with the relationship), and/or otherwise creates obstacles to sex.
The link talks about 70% decrease of Alzheimer risk over a 6 year period of Viagra use (vs lack thereof).
But early Alzheimer signs have been shown to appear up to 18 years before diagnosis. Memory and thinking tests for these signs from 13 to 18 years before diagnosis show 85% higher risk in those failing. [0]
So 6 years is actually a very short window to claim causality, especially when it can be guessed through other means with (my guess) higher accuracy.
I've always thought about how big of a role testosterone plays in later-life health and I wonder why doctors don't prescribe it to restore testosterone levels to a normal (for a younger person) level to prevent osteoporosis and other hormone-linked diseases. Not saying this conclusion in the article is related to testosterone, but I have to speculate on it.
Exogenous testosterone inevitably leads to your natural production going down. Same reason it's a bad idea to even dose a small amount of testosterone in order to help gain muscle quick.
iirc there also might be problems of (slightly) increased cancer risk.
there are some doctors who prescribe test to keep patients test level up later in life, but the increased quality of life might mean a decreased life span and not everyone is willing to take the trade-off.
patients willing to try usually just try a few doctors until they find one who does.
Layperson, admittedly, but it wouldn't shock me that a smooth muscle vasodilator affects cognition. It's good to be skeptical of those claims, but I don't think Occam's Razor cleaves so closely to the alternative explanations.
Exciting news but that 69% does sound a bit suspicious ("almost 70%" haha)! The link here between vasodilation and neurodegeneration isn't obvious though and it s going to take a lot of searching, but it is an interesting research direction
My hypothesis is that this might be indirectly related to the drug. Because sex increases blood circulation to the whole body, including the brain, this circulation helps the brain cells. Taking Viagra regularly for sexual pleasure has this positive side-effect of regular blood flow to the brain, thus reducing the chances of damage to the cells.
There are many correlative factors associated with taking viagra. The fact that older people that take viagra have a partner introduces a myriad of lifestyle differences. Being sexual active is another myriad of differences.
Of all the studies I've seen recently, this one scream Correlation != Causation.
"Notably, we found that sildenafil use reduced the likelihood of Alzheimer's in individuals with coronary artery disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes,..."
Every few days, articles like these keep cropping up with click-bait headlines about preventing all types of diseases in old age. The headlines almost always never match up to the content or even the reality of trying to treat or prevent these many diseases.
Another reality is that death, old age(and sickness with it) strikes such fear into people's hearts that they are willing to walk around with perpetual erections to prevent Alzheimer's disease(and the absurdity of my comment is linked to the absurdity of the click-bait title)
It's a smooth muscle vasodilator. Of course it will increase the blood flow of capillaries in the brain, the question is whether that's a good thing. It's plausible that it has some cognitive benefits — but also, entirely plausible that it might lead to oxidative damage. Without more research, it's impossible to say. Amid so many pseudoscientific headlines it's easy to be cynical, but this seems actually like a good research question to be asking.
Lots of people suggesting having sex might be a prophylactic but also consider that a lower "sex drive" might also be a factor here.
We don't know because we're looking at insurance claim data. You only see links. And only in people with insurance! You have to go much further to show causation.
do people who use viagra have a lower sex drive or simply erectile disfunction? after all they go and buy viagra and then do have sex. it's not like they pop viagra to have the urge to have sex, right?
When is erectile disfunction the result of too much low level body wide disease aka aging, and the histamines are being used by the white blood cells to move through tissue OR not enough histidine in your diet, one of the quickest amino acids into your muscles (it goes straight through the portal shunt) that happens to be a precursor for histamine, and 60mg of histamine will give you a spontaneous erection! Ergo take copious amounts of histidine and get spontaneous erections that you cant control, as if you were going through puberty.
I'd love/hate getting erections that I cannot control.
Sex/touch just felt incredible as a teenager, when I could not control neither erections nor orgasm. I remember dancing with this girl in 8th grade, she had a green silk dress cut in the middle and she put her leg between mine, to this day I remember how that felt; once I was able to control erections/orgasm, it felt like I severed 80% of naughty tough sensations somewhere in in my brain.
I guess once you can control something, some magic is lost.
Histidine also plays a part in remyelinating the nervous system, so erections could be viewed as security service type metadata for health of the brain and nervous system and red and white blood cells amongst other things. It can also help keep cataracts at bay.
That's a question I'm deeply interested in. The pre biomechanical aspects of sexuality. I found some niche papers about somatosensory and self/other perceptions but not much.
But why? My point is rather that if you don't want sex, you're not going to co-pay for a drug that helps you maintain an erection you've no interest in.
If you do think everyone is popping these, I'd suggest this is maybe a side effect of years of being exposed to too much spam and way too much under-regulated pharmaceutical advertising. They're not without unwanted side effects, and again, don't overcome a disinterest in sex.
No side effects (for most people, especially using cialis) and fast, easy errections that you can maintain on demand for as long as you want. Mmmm...sounds just like 21st century progress to me.
Seems to be the conventional wisdom on this thread that any counterintuitive medical conclusion should be ignored and ascribed to psychosomatic factors, the placebo effect, or we're just testing for it more.
Viagra/sildenafil no longer requires a prescription in the UK, so I'm now imagining public health advertising campaigns telling older people to remember their Viagra.
crazy how a medicine went from treating heart disease to ed now to treating alzheimer's. wish more drugs were like this these days, but most modern drugs hardly work
Presumably the only old drugs still in use are the ones that were particularly effective. Old but ineffective drugs will over time be naturally replaced and forgotten.
It's the same sort of reasoning why ageless musical hits are still enjoyed today. The musical hits that aged poorly have been forgotten over time.
It's not that old stuff was better, it's that modern stuff hasn't had enough time for the crap to be forgotten.
Viagra might help with altitude sickness, which I'm not sure would be linked to this, but it might help with breaking the idea it's only for erectile dysfunction and cardiovascular problems.
Is it just me or is there a sub text here that says: “maybe it’s not the drug, maybe a good shag every now and then does it, and viagra consumption is a good proxy for knowing that”?
I don't trust my garmins heart rate for anything beyond running. On my rowing machine it barely goes beyond 90 too, meanwhile I'm drenched in sweat. Must be something with the movement/positioning of the watch.
Almost all Garmins can be paired with chest-strap HR monitors (much more accurate than any watch) if you want to confirm it's the watch. It does sound like it's the watch!
yeah, if you get the chance to be hooked up to a proper hr monitor while the watch is on youll notice its typically wrong. Still like having the tracking tho
for what it's worth, my reading at my Drs office were in line with what my watch said and it's pretty good at tracking changes in intensity levels during a run workout.
Or it's simply different ideas about what sex should be like. My hear rate certainly goes far higher than 90s, but people like different speed and vigour...
I remember from an old bad novel the assertion that a gentleman never wears a watch to bed. In this case, I think the notion was that it implied he didn't want to linger past the end of the cinq-a-sept.
I'd be happy to tell you that I never wear a watch to bed, but that is in part because I don't have a watch.
What? Respecting people's wives is a religious thing? Her point is valid, it is crass. Some people may like crass jokes, but I don't understand when some people refuse to admit they're crass
You are correct, it was crass. In moderation, a crass joke can sometimes be in taste. Whether this one was or not is in the eye of the beholder.
My contention was with the accusation that I had suggested "women being objects to be passed around". It seems to me that the GP could not fathom that a woman might have sex - or reject sex - by virtue of her own free will.
So does masturbation.... could it be the exchange of molecules, a touch of human warmth or that feeling of contentment/happiness which is more important?
Not really, unless you both pile down on one another like logs and wait for an earthquake. Good sex with a person is quite a workout in comparison, maybe you should reevaluate your practices.
That’s the first thing that came to my mind, immediately followed by “I should tell my wife that it’s her fault if my semen turns to brain plaque” the next time she has a “headache”
Eh. Right on cue, I suppose. Because I married someone with a sense of humor. Maybe you can write a search engine to figure out what that is. Yes, that’s a throwback to when nerd jokes were a thing. I’ll throw this in so you you’re able to comprehend /s
Is it possible that usage of viagra indicates an interest in/ability to participate in sexual activity which also indicates a level of health and mental acuity that would be less common among those with Alzheimer's?
Red light on your nutsack for ten minutes with wavelengths of 660nm and or 850nm a few times a week is just as effective for the getting old, decreasing boner issues.
Another trick is to form a fist and put it between your legs at your knees and squeeze your legs as hard as you can trying to crush your fist. You might feel a slight pop and things should work better after a few seconds of squeezing your fist.
