Viagra Notes

Viagra Causes Blood Stickiness Inducing Stroke

There had been many reports of people dying with heart strokes ever since Viagra had been introduced in the market in the year 1997. Viagra had brought a revolution in the field of erectile dysfunction as it was the first drug to treat male impotence. Many lovelorn couples whose sex life had been running in trouble because of the male impotence problem have been suffering a lot. It was only because of Viagra that many a relationship was saved from breaking. So for such couples, the makers of Viagra have really had introduced a magical wand to ward off the problems erupting in their sexual relationship. But every new thing has also got attached to it some inherent flaws which come as an unwanted package along with the product. Something like this happened with Viagra too. Along with the immense positive feed back from men, also were heard some negative things regarding this drug.

There were some reported deaths from men who died from stroke after taking Viagra. The makers of Viagra had vehemently objected to these reports saying that it was not due to Viagra but strenuous sexual activity of men which resulted in the stroke and hence their death. But an international team of scientist has finally declared that they have hit upon the reason of the death of around 5000 men who suffered from heart attacks after taking the erectile dysfunction drug-Viagra.

One of the scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago who had been the lead investigator of the team told in detail about the new research finding regarding the drug in an interview to Reuter's health. It was found that Viagra encourages blood platelets to clump. Platelets are necessary for the clotting of the blood in order to prevent blood loss at the site of the injury on the body and it is just due to the function of the platelets that when we cut our hand then after bleeding for some time the blood does not come out any more. This is because the platelets clump at the site of the wound preventing the body from losing more blood. However the clumping of the blood is fatal as far as heart attacks are concerned. This finding itself would throw light on the possible reasons between a liaison of Viagra and the number of deaths due to stroke after taking Viagra. Viagra works by elevating the levels of a compound in cells called cyclic guanosine monophosphate, or cGMP. This compound cGMP has been known to inhibit the clumping of the platelets. Viagra may be a risk factor for patients with pre-existing conditions such as atherosclerosis, although more studies are needed to further understand this issue.

Experiments have shown that the compound cGMP plays an important role in making the platelets sticky. Viagra is known to work by stopping the destruction of cGMP. While the drug alone did not cause the platelets to clump, it did cause clumping in the presence of other blood chemicals known to be more plentiful in damaged arteries, according to a press release from the University of Illinois . In fact the effect of the drug was seen even when lower dosages were administered, much lower than what it is used to treat erectile dysfunction.