quote:

Viagra reduces risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by nearly 70 percent

quote:

Researchers looked at the connection between Alzheimer’s disease onset and sildenafil among users and non-users over a follow-up period of six years. Compared to other drugs, sildenafil led to a 55-percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s in comparison to taking losartan. The drug led to a 63-percent lower Alzheimer’s risk compared to metformin, a 64-percent lower risk than taking glimepiride, and a 65-percent lower risk compared to taking diltiazem.

https://www.studyfinds.org/via...ces-alzheimers-risk/

And while you're at it, get those cataracts taken care of.

https://www.studyfinds.org/cataract-surgery-dementia/

Maybe it’s not the viagra so much as the sex.

Why am I not surprised this got your attention?

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
And while you're at it, get those cataracts taken care of.

https://www.studyfinds.org/cataract-surgery-dementia/

Nah. Not buying it.

Sun exposure causes cataracts.

In the US, people who get lots of sun are often outside exercising or working.

Physical labor, exercise, and fresh air boost mood, lung function, and fitness.

Hence, people who get cataracts have less dementia, but the case is not the cataracts.

from the article:

quote:

They believe, however, that people may be getting “higher quality sensory input” after cataract surgery, which might be beneficial to the brain.

I remember reading something about a positive connection between using hearing aids and lowered dementia risks, so this makes a lot of sense.

Still, I get your reluctance, Cindy. In the article, they don't have a comment from a researcher not associated with the study, which I always like to see, esp. if I haven't read the academic report itself.

I'm always a bit amused/bemused by papers like that. Research like that rarely gets published in good economics journals. Essentially, they have dumped a lot of data into a simple regression, and tried to control for a few obvious correlates (age, sex, co-morbidities). That's the kind of work our undergraduates do as an exercise in a basic econometrics class. This is just on steroids because of the size of the dataset. But "big data" doesn't make for better conclusions if the research design is just regression with a few control variables. I routinely have more sophisticated method design in many of my senior seminar papers.

As Cindy points out in the cataract case there are so many unobservables at work that the correlation could very well be completely meaningless. At least these authors don't claim any causality. But they're wrong is saying that the only way to see causality is a controlled experiment. There are lots of ways to tease out causality from retrospective data if you can design a method that mimics a random separation into control group and treated group.

Hey!!!
It is certainly worth a try.

Whadduyah got to lose?

I wonder if there's really a direct cause and effect. My Mom has a skin pigmenting issue and stays out of the sun religiously, and just had two cataracts removed so not sure about the sun/cataract link.

Never tried Vigara, which is something to be proud of at 60. Not drinking/smoking pays forward I've found. But hey I think I'll talk to my doc. vigara would be more fun than dementia.