Men who take Viagra, Cialis or Levitra and other drugs of the same class for erectile dysfunction (ED) experience lower rates of heart failure and death due to heart disease compared to other men, according to a study presented on May 13 at scientific meetings of the American Heart Association in Reston, Virginia.

Scientists from Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI) in Pasadena, HealthCore Inc. and the University of California San Francisco analyzed health records of more than 70,000 men with ED. They compared rates of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and death amongst men who took phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor (PDE-5i) drugs—including Viagra, Cialis and Levitra—to rates among men who never took these drugs.

“We initially looked at this study as a cardiovascular safety study, but we were surprised to see the association between the use of these drugs and the significant beneficial effects on cardiovascular outcomes,” said principal investigator Robert A. Kloner, MD, PhD, chief science officer and scientific director of cardiovascular research at HMRI. “These drugs may have cardioprotective effects that could eventually go beyond their current uses.”

“Our research represents the first time the effect of PDE-5i drugs on cardiovascular health has been explored in a large population of relatively low-risk men with ED in the United States,” stated co-investigator Julia E. Bradsher, PhD, MBA, President and CEO of HMRI. “The number of patients involved gives us a great deal of confidence in the results.”

Furthermore, men who had received more of a PDE-5i medication experienced greater reductions in MACE, including a 55% reduction in MACE in those with the highest amount of tablets dispensed versus those with the lowest amount.

Kloner and his co-investigators—Bradsher; Eric Stanek, Christopher L. Crowe, Mukul Singhal, and Rebecca S. Pepe of Healthcore Inc.; and Raymond Rosen of University of California San Francisco—drew anonymized patient records from a large U.S. commercial and Medicare insurance claims database. The study, funded by a grant from Sanofi, examined records over approximately 14 years.