Impotency drug Viagra brings new hopes for patients suffering heart ailment

The impotency drug Viagra has new promises in healthcare field as the scientists have discovered its surprisingly positive effects for the patients with diastolic heart failure by causing too-stiff heart chamber walls to become more elastic.

Impotency drug Viagra brings new hopes for patients suffering heart ailment

According to a latest study published in the journal Circulation, explains how Viagra might benefit patients suffering with diastolic heart failure.

Patients with such condition have unusually stiff ventricles, the heart's major pumping chambers, which do not fill sufficiently with blood. This leads to blood "backing up" in the lungs and causing breathing difficulties.

Scientists discovered that Viagra triggers an enzyme that causes a protein in heart muscle cells to relax. The positive result was observed in dogs with diastolic heart failure within minutes of the drug being administered.

"We have developed a therapy in an animal model that, for the first time, also raises hopes for the successful treatment of patients", said research leader Professor Wolfgang Linke - from the Ruhr Universitat Bochum (RUB) in Germany.

Viagra has same kind of effect on blood vessels, that’s why it was originally developed as a treatment for high blood pressure and heart disease. Viagra’s active component, ‘Sildenafil’, reduces an enzyme involved in the mechanism that normalizes blood flow. However, the enzyme serves somewhat different in different parts of the body.

Contrary to their first belief the British scientists behind Viagra discovered that it didn’t help in a great way to the patients with high blood pressure; but it had an amazing effect on men with erectile dysfunction. The drug effectively restrains the enzyme ‘phosphodiesterase’ (PDE) in the penis, increasing blood flow to the organ.

Professor 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."