my comments - remember when they warn men about dying from the effects
of viagra and sex?  now they say just the opposite.   only no sex with
it..... so does sex kill????  :)))

~ curtis
================

Viagra May Treat Heart Failure
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter  

MONDAY, Oct. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Viagra, famous for improving men's
sexual function, also appears to reduce the effects of hormonal stress
on the heart by 50 percent, claims a report by researchers at Johns
Hopkins University.

Viagra (sildenafil) works by helping genital blood vessels expand to
maintain an erection, but more recently, it has also been used as a
treatment for pulmonary hypertension. However, the drug has been thought
to have no direct effect on the heart.

"Unlike what was previously thought, drugs like Viagra can in fact alter
heart function," said lead researcher Dr. David Kass, a professor of
medicine at Johns Hopkins. "It alters it particularly when the heart is
stimulated by hormones."

The report appears in the Oct. 24 online edition of Circulation.

Earlier research by Kass's team found that Viagra blocked the short-term
effects of hormonal stress in the hearts of mice. They also found that,
in mice, Viagra prevented and reversed the long-term cardiac effects of
chronic high blood pressure.

In addition, Kass' group found that, in mice, Viagra reversed the
negative effects on heart muscle weakened by heart failure and
enlargement, a condition called hypertrophy.
In the current study, 35 healthy men and women with no signs of heart
disease received two separate injections of dobutamine over three hours.
Dobutamine increases heart rate and pumping strength. Between
injections, the patients were given Viagra or a placebo. Then they all
were given a second dobutamine injection.

After the first injection of dobutamine, the force of heart contraction
increased 150 percent in all the patients. However, in the group treated
with Viagra, the increased heartbeat was slowed by 50 percent.
"Viagra puts a brake on the effect of dobutamine," Kass said. "It
reduces the stimulation of the heart so that the contraction of the
heart was less strong."
Kass noted that his group is starting a clinical trial to see if Viagra
can be effective in patients with heart failure. "If you gave a drug
like Viagra not just acutely, but chronically, you might be able to
improve heart function and reduce the chronic stress response in
patients with hypertrophy," he said.

One expert believes that Viagra may have a role to play in the treatment
of heart failure.

"This research may lead to the development of a new use of the drug in
the treatment of diseases such as hypertension, hypertrophy and heart
failure, where beta-adrenergic activity is enhanced following
neurohormonal stimulation," said Rakesh C. Kukreja, a professor of
medicine, physiology, biochemistry and emergency medicine and the Eric
Lipman chair of cardiology at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical
Center.

"These studies are complementary to the expanding new role of Viagra and
other relatively safe PDE-5A inhibitors as powerful cardioprotectants,"
he added.
However, another expert was more cautious.

"It has a potential, but the crucial studies will be in actual patients
with cardiac conditions, and on other medications to see if cardiac
stress will be minimized with sildenafil," said Hrayr S. Karagueuzian, a
senior research scientist in the Division of Cardiology at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center, in Los Angeles.
"I am not going to buy it on its face value," Karagueuzian said. "Let's
see what happens. We simply do not know if the balance of the sildenafil
effect will end up on the benefit or the deleterious side."

More information
The  
American Heart Association can tell you more about  heart failure.

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc