Viagra touted as life-saving heart treatment - after scientists find it makes heart muscles LESS stiff

Dailymail.co.uk - Viagra helps ailing hearts to recover in a surprising way - by making them less stiff, scientists have learned.

The drug was first developed as a heart disease treatment - it's more well-known use was simply a lucky side-effect.

But now it seems that it might help heart patients after all.

The impotency drug causes too-rigid heart chamber walls to become more elastic

The research explains how Viagra might benefit patients with diastolic heart failure.

People with the condition have abnormally inflexible ventricles, the heart's major pumping chambers, that do not fill sufficiently with blood.

This leads to blood ‘backing up’ in the lungs and breathing difficulties.

Scientists found that Viagra activates an enzyme that causes a protein in heart muscle cells to relax.

The effect was seen in dogs with diastolic heart failure within minutes of the drug being administered.

Study leader Professor Wolfgang Linke, from the Ruhr Universitat Bochum in Germany, said: ‘We have developed a therapy in an animal model that, for the first time, also raises hopes for the successful treatment of patients.’

Viagra has a similar effect on blood vessels, which is why it was originally developed as a treatment for high blood pressure and heart disease.

The drug's active ingredient, sildenafil, inhibits an enzyme involved in the mechanism that regulates blood flow.

However, the enzyme is slightly different in different parts of the body.

The British scientists behind Viagra found to their initial disappointment that it was not a great help to patients with high blood pressure. But it had a miraculous effect on men with erectile dysfunction.

The drug successfully suppressed the enzyme phosphodiesterasein the penis, increasing blood flow to the organ.

Prof Linke's team found that it worked on the same enzyme in heart cells. This had the effect of causing a cardiac muscle protein called titin to become more elastic.

‘The titin molecules are similar to rubber bands,’ said the professor. ‘They contribute decisively to the stiffness of cardiac walls.’

The research is published today in the journal Circulation.

Almost half of emergency patients admitted to hospital with heart failure have a diastolic condition.

Diastolic heart failure affects the ‘diastole’ half of the cardiac cycle, when the heart's chambers have finished contracting and are re-filling with blood.

Waspada Efek Samping Obat Impotensi!

Seks tak selamanya berkobar. Ada kalanya remang-remang, bahkan padam. Salah satu penyebabnya adalah penis tidak dapat ereksi dan menjadi tegang. Tapi, orang lemah syahwat tak perlu berkecil hati karena dunia pengobatan telah menemukan obat impotensi.

Salah satu obat anti impotensi yang paling banyak dipakai di seluruh dunia adalah sildenafil yang di pasaran sering disebut dengan pil biru. Penelitian yang telah dilakukan secara ekstensif di banyak negara memang membuktikan bahwa obat ini punya tingkat keberhasilan tinggi, sampai 89 persen untuk memicu ereksi.

Kendati demikian, obat ini juga memiliki efek samping. Dalam suatu telaah sistematis dan meta analisis dari 49 penelitian klinis, Dr Alexander Tsertsvadze dari Ottawa Health Research Institute, Kanada dan timnya melaporkan bahwa pria yang memakai Sildenafasil sitrat memiliki risiko 1,5 kali lebih besar mengalami efek samping dibanding dengan mereka yang menggunakan plasebo.

Efek samping yang paling umum dari obat lemah syahwat ini antara lain adalah sakit kepala, dada berdebar-debar, sesak napas, dan gangguan penglihatan, flushing (muka memerah karena pelebaran pembuluh darah di wajah), serta gangguan pencernaan. Penelitian juga menunjukkan bahwa risiko efek samping meningkat seiring dengan ditambahnya dosis viagra yang diminum.

"Setiap obat pasti memiliki efek samping – tidak ada satupun obat yang bebas efek samping, termasuk sildenafil sitrat," kata dr. Budhi Damian Widjojo, Primary Care Medical Advisor PT. Pfizer Indonesia.

Sildenafil sitrat hanya boleh digunakan bila dokter menyatakan seorang pria terindikasi menderita disfungsi ereksi. "Tentunya pria dewasa yang boleh menggunakan obat ini," katanya.

Selain itu untuk menghindari efek samping yang tidak diinginkan, Budhi menjelaskan sildenafil sitrat tidak diperbolehkan pada pasien yang sedang minum obat jantung golongan nitrat. "Penggunaan sildenafil sitrat untuk pasien yang menderita penyakit jantung harus berhati-hati karena ada kemungkinan mereka minum obat golongan nitrat tersebut atau karena memang kondisi jantungnya yang tidak optimal untuk berhubungan seksual," jelasnya.

Pada pria, aliran darah merupakan bagian terpenting untuk menghasilkan hubungan seks yang baik. Sildenafil bekerja merelaksasi otot polos, dengan cara menghambat enzim fosfodiestrase. Otot polos yang berperan dalam impotensi disebut korpus kavernosum, suatu jaringan yang mendukung ereksi pada penis. Dalam kondisi relaksasi, aliran darah masuk ke dalam penis sehingga terjadilah ereksi.

Up and Eat Them

CIA agents are using a potent new weapon to aid the fight against the Taliban – Viagra pills.

The sex-boost drug is being used to bribe Afghan tribal warlords in return for vital intelligence information.

The elderly chiefs often have up to four wives to keep happy – and one ex-CIA agent in Afghanistan revealed how a 60-year-old warlord was persuaded to assist Coalition forces after they offered to ensure he was up to the task.

The chief had extensive knowledge of the area and controlled key passages, but was reluctant to help. US forces won his loyalty by handing over four blue pills after a medical check-up.

When troops returned four days later, the satisfied chief happily spilled the beans on Taliban movements and supply routes.

The CIA agent said: “He came up to us beaming. He said, ‘You are a great man.’

“After that, we could do whatever we wanted in his area.”

Bribing chiefs with medicine and school supplies has been standard practice since the Coalition entered Afghanistan in 2001.

Jamie Smith, another retired CIA agent, said: “You’re trying to bridge a gap between people living in the 18th Century and people from the 21st. So you look for those common things that motivate people everywhere.”