A new study says that drugs such as Viagra and Levitra could be better than nitroglycerin in protecting the heart before and after a severe heart attack.
WASHINGTON, DC: They don’t charge Rs 463 a pop for nothing. A new study published in the prestigious Journal of Molecular and Cellular Biology by Indian American cardiologist Rajesh Kukreja says that erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra and Levitra could be better than the usually-employed nitroglycerin in protecting the heart before and after a severe heart attack.
Kukreja, a professor of medicine and Eric Lipman Chair of Cardiology at the Virginia Commonwealth University, and his colleagues compared nitroglycerin (a drug normally used to treat angina or chest pain) with two of the most common erectile dysfunction drugs - sildenafil and vardenafil, respectively known by their commercial names of Viagra and Levitra. Their objective? To determine the effectiveness of each for heart protection following a heart attack.
“Erectile dysfunction drugs can prevent damage in the heart not only when given before a heart attack, as we discovered previously, but also lessen the injury after the heart attack,” Kukreja said. “The protective effects on the heart produced by these erectile dysfunction drugs may be potentially useful as adjunct therapy in patients undergoing elective procedures, including coronaryartery bypass graft, coronary angioplasty or heart transplantation. He added that another potential application could be to prevent the multiple organ damage that occurs following cardiac arrest, resuscitation or shock.
When a person undergoes a heart attack, the heart is deprived of oxygen, which can result in significant damage to heart muscle and tissue. After the attack, most patients require treatment to reduce and repair the damage and improve their chances of survival. With the exception of early reperfusion, there are no available therapies that are truly effective in protecting or repairing such damage clinically. Nitroglycerin, a vasodilator, opens blood vessels in order to improve the flow of blood to a patient’s heart.
Kukreja’s study reports that in animals, sildenafil and vardenafil reduce damage in the heart muscle when given after a severe heart attack. In contrast, nitroglycerin failed to reduce the damage in the heart when administered under similar conditions.
A Virginia Commonwealth University release added that Kukreja and his colleagues have been studying a class of erectile dysfunction drugs known as phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors for several years as part of ongoing research into heart protection. “The team first investigated sildenafil, and then vardenafil, and found that both compounds were protective when given before a heart attack under experimental conditions,” the release said.
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