Health-promoting effects of Sildenafil Citrate (often marked as Viagra) go far beyond a mere improvement of male sexual function. The most effective and safest PDE5 inhibitor, Sildenafil is by right hailed a magical cure for any erectile issue. Indeed, its potential capabilities are striking and sometimes hardly believable. Still, they exist. Here are just some proofs.

Why is not Sildenafil yet a Universal Panacea  Heart and lung diseases

Sildenafil Citrate can provide a lifeline for patients, suffering from potentially threatening cardiac and lung impairments including heart failure and pulmonary arterial hypertension (high blood pressure in the lung arteries). Injections with Sildenafil are often prescribed to the PAH sufferers with an aim of improving their exercise ability and delaying a clinical worsening.

In such patients, the drug works by inhibiting the cGMP specific phosphodiesterase type-5 enzyme, found in the smooth muscle of the pulmonary vascular system, where PDE-5 degrades the action of cGMP. Sildenafil enhances the levels of cGMP in the smooth muscle cells, found in the lung blood vessels, causing their relaxation. This leads to the vasodilatation of the pulmonary vascular bed and the widening of the general circulation, what improves the pulmonary gas diffusion and increases the cardiac output. In such a manner, Sildenafil prevents the constriction – the main culprit of pulmonary hypertension.

A single oral dose of Sildenafil 50 mg taken for 3-6 months improves exercise capacity and overall quality of life in patients with tachycardia, chronic congestive heart failure, a risk of stroke, and hypertension. Such positive cardiovascular effects of Sildenafil definitely indicate a novel approach in the management of chronic heart conditions.

Female fertility

Female fertility

Sildenafil is indicated not only for men with a weak erectile function but for the women, afflicting with an inability to get pregnant. Sildenafil Citrate boosts fertility by aiding the blood supply to the uterus that increases the thickness of endometrium (a uterine lining). A thin uterine lining is the main cause of female infertility. Because of it, many women cannot successfully undergo IVF (the method involves an attachment of an embryo into a uterus), because the lining of their womb is not sufficiently thick to maintain a pregnancy.

Specially designed Sildenafil suppositories taken 3-10 days before the IVF procedure, can dramatically increase the chances of a successful embryo implantation, for the active agent helps dilate blood vessels and promote the thickening of uterus lining without any serious side-effects. There are also known cases when women have conceived naturally after using daily oral doses of Sildenafil for about 3 weeks. Nevertheless, women who cannot get pregnant for some reasons should not experiment with Sildenafil Citrate unsupervised.

Diabetes

Sildenafil is a potential cure for diabetes. It can ward off heart and kidney impairment risks in people with preexisting diabetes by improving their insulin sensitivity. The lack of insulin sensitivity is a predecessor of Type 2 diabetes. Such an ailment is characterized by an abnormal blood sugar level, which in its turn indicates an insufficient secretion or an improper work of insulin (the hormone is responsible for the removing sugar from the bloodstream).

Patients, who administer Sildenafil 50 mg on a regular basis, become more sensitive to the effects of insulin. Moreover, the medication reduces the level of albumin in the urine (an elevated albumin urine level is an indicator of a risk for heart and kidney diseases).

It is also established that PDE-5 inhibitors like Sildenafil can help people with gastroparesis, a common complication of diabetes mellitus. A delayed stomach emptying, which handicaps a normal digestion and induces loss of appetite and dewatering, is a problem for 80 % of diabetics in Canada. Sildenafil-containing drugs relax stomach muscles, thus allowing for a timely food emptying from a stomach.

Memory function

Sildenafil sharpens the cognitive abilities, meaning it can be used to stave off dementia. Vascular dementia is a result of the damage to the brain small blood vessels. Such damage makes artery walls thick and stiff, which leads to a deficient blood inflow to the brain tissue, and consequently, to problems with memory, thinking, behavior, and ability to perform routine activities. Sildenafil Citrate with its powerful blood-flow boosting effect seems to be a right solution for people with dementia or an impaired cognitive function.

What’s wrong with Sildenafil?

Despite numerous health-promoting properties, Sildenafil is not a universal panacea. Along with an impressive list of therapeutic benefits, the medication still has a number of serious shortcomings that prevent Sildenafil from being truly a miracle drug. For instance, in pediatric patients with pulmonary artery hypertension, the use of Sildenafil Citrate may result in death after the first year of treatment. For this reason, a chronic use of Sildenafil is highly unadvised to children under 17.

Though the preparation can dramatically benefit people with certain cardiovascular conditions, it can do them harm as well due to its vasodilative effects. The medicine causes a mild and transient drop in blood pressure, meaning subjects with a resting hypotension, sodium and water depletion or vegetative dysfunction can severely be affected by such a therapy.

As a vasodilator, Sildenafil Citrate can increase a risk of pulmonary edema and worsen the cardiovascular status in individuals with the pulmonary veno-occlusive disease.

The treatment with Sildenafil may cause a permanent loss of vision in people with anatomic or vascular risk factors, which precede the development of non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy. These risk factors typically include crowded disc, primary pigmentary degeneration of the retina, elderly age, high blood pressure, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and hyperlipemia. If you have any of these conditions, you are likely to develop a blurred or decreased vision after taking a pill of Sildenafil or Viagra.

There are reports of a sudden loss of hearing accompanied by ear buzzing and vertigo associated with the intake of Sildenafil Citrate. The mechanism of how PDE5 inhibitors impair the hearing function is still unclear. If you have a history of hearing problems, you should not take Sildenafil without consulting a qualified health practitioner face-to-face.

The unique phenomenon at the pharmaceutical market, Sildenafil is probably the most controversial and widely talked drug for today. Its therapeutic properties reside far beyond the scope of a poor erection treatment. Actually, the medication can help people overcome particular cardiovascular and lungs problems, take their diabetes under control, improve fertility, fight dementia, boost physical endurance, and manage a renal function. On the other hand, Sildenafil may cause serious, even life-threatening side-effects; it also has a number of use limitations like a simultaneous nitrate therapy, current blood cell diseases, and bleeding problems. Competencies of Sildenafil still need to be examined and evaluated, but it may be safely suggested that Sildenafil is one of the most omnipotent drugs ever existed.