Viagra may make you live LONGER, scientists discover – but they admit they have no idea why

Amorous encounters may not be the only thing Viagra offers.

At least that is according to scientists.

Sildenafil, the powerful chemical that gives men erections, may have a ‘beneficial effect on longevity’, say French and Swiss researchers.

Prescribed for men The study, which examined 40 years of data, found that the impotence drug had a 15 percent lower risk of death.

The apparent life-extending effects were so clear that the team claimed the results “warrant further investigation.”

Medical records of around 500,000 Britons were analyzed in the study, which has yet to be peer-reviewed – the process addressing any flaws in the methodology.

Armed with that data, experts from biotech startup EPITERNA were able to see any health outcomes associated with certain drugs.

Most of the more than 400 drugs they assessed, including the antibiotic amoxicillin and the cholesterol drug simvastatin, had a ‘negative’ effect on lifespan.

For example, the opioid painkiller morphine was associated with a 456 percent increased risk of death during the study.

The researchers, who worked with experts from the universities of Zurich, Lausanne and Toulouse Hospital, said this was “likely due to the underlying negative effect of the disease for which the drug is intended.”

Conversely, experts couldn’t pinpoint exactly why the little blue pill might help people live longer.

However, they cited recent studies highlighting how sildenafil can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease as potential factors.

Similar longevity benefits were also observed with atorvastatin, naproxen and estradiol.

The team wrote in their pre-print: ‘These retrospective results warrant further investigation in randomized controlled trials.’

Researchers used data from the UK Biobank. The patients were between 37 and 73 years old. Only 46 percent were men.

To be included in the data, they had to have been prescribed a drug for at least three months, although it was unclear how often patients would use the drug.

Patients were matched one-on-one with a ‘control’ who had the same health problems but was not taking the same drug, allowing the scientists to compare any differences.

The researchers did not provide details on the average period of years they followed patients in the study.

While the researchers looked at multiple medications, they only examined men who were prescribed sildenafil.

Researchers said it was impossible to determine whether healthy people taking sildenafil would experience the same lifespan-boosting effects as in their study.

It was also not possible to determine why patients were taking sildenafil in the first place.

Although known as an anti-impotence drug, sildenafil is also used by men and women who suffer from pulmonary hypertension – a form of high blood pressure in the arteries that supply blood to the lungs.

The same process by which the drug increases blood flow to the penis also relaxes the blood vessels in the chest to help treat the condition.

Scientists behind the study also said the dataset does not take into account other factors that may have increased a patient’s life expectancy, such as diet or exercise.

Sildenafil became an over-the-counter drug in Britain in 2018.

The research comes a week after MailOnline revealed that popular erection pills such as Viagra and Cialis have been linked to more than 200 deaths in Britain.

None of the fatalities – all of which have occurred since 1998 – have been proven to have been caused directly by the drugs.

Experts also stressed that the pills are safe and that many incidents could instead reflect deaths from sex in men with heart problems.

Men can buy sildenafil and other impotence pills without a prescription for as little as $15. Tablets are also available online for just €1.30 per pill.

Millions of British men are now taking impotence medications.

The latest NHS-backed data shows that 22 million prescriptions for these drugs were issued by GPs in England between 2019 and 2023, at a cost of £91 million.

Doctors already know that drugs like sildenafil can be dangerous under certain circumstances.

For example, people with known heart problems are advised not to use it.

Even package inserts distributed with sildenafil acknowledge cases of sudden death in men who have used the drug, although it emphasizes that such cases are rare and mainly in men with heart problems.

“It is not possible to determine whether these events were directly related to sildenafil,” it also adds.

Side effects associated with impotence medications have been previously reported in the medical literature.

MailOnline reported last month how a Brazilian man suffered an unprecedented reaction, developing pustules across his body after taking tadalafil, sold as Cialis in Britain.

Other reports have linked sildenafil use to eye problems, including vision loss.

No medicine is without risk and erection pills are no exception.

The NHS says around one in 100 people will experience common side effects from taking sildenafil, the most commonly prescribed erectile dysfunction drug in Britain.

These include headaches, nausea, hot flushes, indigestion, a stuffy nose and dizziness, according to the NHS.

The health service warns that people who use the pills for a longer period of time, for example with pulmonary hypertension, will suffer from this more often than those who use the pills for erectile dysfunction.

More serious side effects that require urgent medical care are estimated to occur in fewer than one in 1,000 people.

These include seizures, a prolonged and possibly painful erection, especially for more than two hours, chest pain and in very rare cases a life-threatening allergic reaction to the drug called anaphylaxis.