VIAGRA CAN PREVENT COLON AND INTESTINE CANCER

Only with small doses

Viagra is the best known of all existing medications against erectile dysfunction. Its function is to relax the tissue around the blood vessels to allow a greater flow of blood, thus facilitating the erection. But a team from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical College of Georgia at the University of Augusta, in the United States, has discovered a new healthy property of this drug: it can be used to prevent colon and bowel cancer.

The researchers conducted an experiment with mice genetically modified to develop these cancers, and they were given small doses of viagra. And the result was that the proliferation of polyps, abnormal sets of cells that can end up becoming cancerous, was halved. The drug also produced an increase in a chemical called GMP, which reduces intestinal proliferation in the intestinal tissue, one of the processes linked to the development of cancer.

Colorectal cancer is the third leading cause of death from this disease worldwide. Now, after the success obtained in the tests with guinea pigs, the researchers are going to test the drug with patients who have a high genetic risk of developing this type of cancer.

Source: EurekAlert.