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  • Viagra, Diabetes and L-arginine

     

     In 1998 three great scientists,  including Dr Louis J. Ignarro  (pictured), won the Nobel Prize for  their work on Arginine Derived Nitric  Oxide (ADNO, or NO).  In his book,  “NO More Heart Disease”, Dr  Ignarro writes, “By 1990, our  experiments indicated that No is  also the chemical messenger  responsible for penile erections. Nerves in the erectile tissues release NO, dilating the blood vessels and initiating erections.  The discovery soon led to the development and marketing by Pfizer of the drug Viagra………..  The success of this drug led some of my friends to call me ‘The Father of Viagra.’…..Our discoveries about blood pressure, blood clotting, and erectile dysfunction were only the start.  Low levels of NO are associated with many of the most common diseases of mankind – from infections to malignancies to diabetic complications.  We found that NO influences the functioning and wellbeing of the entire body.”

    ADNO resists, reduces and reverses oxidization.  Oxidative stress/cell damage from free radicals is the key problem to avoid.   Research has shown that these are the underlying initiator of over 70 chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes (Davies, “Oxidative stress: The paradox of aerobic life,” Biochem Soc Symp, 61 (1995), 1-31).

    Now a new study published in the “Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism” seems to support earlier research showing that Viagra can assist in improving insulin sensitivity.   Viagra started its life as a drug aimed at relaxing the blood vessels for people suffering from angina, but now it has another primary aim.  This latest finding finding is said to be particularly important, because drugs presently deployed to stop patients moving from prediabetes to Type 2 diabetes can have side effects and in particular can themselves cause heart problems.   Dr Nancy Brown (Vanderbilt University School of Medicine) is quoted in “The Times” as saying, “Because existing drug therapies to prevent type 2 diabetes can have negative effects on the heart or be of limited use in patients with kidney disease, strategies to prevent diabetes without adversely affecting the risk of kidney and heart disease could have a large impact on public health.”

    It is, of course, no surprise that Viagra can assist in improving health, including resistance to diabetes, because it is derived from research into ADNO.   Unlike statins, which I condemn for reasons set out in various blogs on this site including their side effect of causing diabetes, I have no serious criticism of Viagra.  However, a key point is being missed here.  It is ADNO that is active in Viagra in helping with diabetes.  You do not need to take Viagra to obtain ADNO and for more than half the population of the world, namely women, Viagra can be quite an uncomfortable experience.   The first thing anybody should do, especially if they have problems with diabetes or cardiovascular disease, is to consider a good L-arginine supplement, which will boost ADNO more generally than Viagra.

    There have been very good results for sufferers from Type 2 Diabetes taking L-arginine supplementation.   As long ago as 1994 it was established that oral Arginine supplements reduced collagen accumulation in the heart muscles of diabetic mice, which led to the conclusion that cardiac dysfunction in diabetes mellitus is due to impaired availability of Arginine Derived Nitric Oxide (ADNO) (Joffe et al, Circulation (abstracts), 96 (1997), 1518).   More recent research (e.g. Hrabák and Kutor, “Arginine Amino Acid” page 33 et seq.) has linked the beneficial effect of Arginine on diabetes to the fact that it is an Arginase inhibitor.   Arginase, which is, of course, a key liver enzyme, is directly implicated in cardiovascular disease, silicosis and asthma.   In Type 1 Diabetes the impairment of endothelial ADNO is well established.   The relationship between Arginase and reduced serum Mg2+ levels has been suggested to be a consequence of reduced insulin action (Bjelakovic, J.Basic Clin. Physiol. Pharmacol, 2009, 20, 319-334).   Dr Louis Ignarro (above) concludes, “If you run tests on people with advanced diabetes, you would find that their endothelium is incapable of producing adequate amounts of [AD]NO….We know that nitric oxide can reduce blood pressure levels. ….We know that it can reduce the risk of diabetic retinopathy” (NO More Heart Disease”, pp 190-191).

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