http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/0...0845378957.html


Military resolve hardens
Date: June 24 2006


Alan Zarembo in Los Angeles

SCIENTISTS have found a performance-enhancing drug that could be exploited by endurance athletes at high altitudes and soldiers in the mountains of Afghanistan: Viagra.

One group of research subjects rode stationary bicycles and breathed through masks to simulate the low-oxygen conditions found at 3870 metres. They improved their times for six kilometres by an average of 39 per cent after taking the erectile dysfunction drug, researchers at Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System reported.

Military researchers are considering a study to see if Viagra could help soldiers function better at high altitudes. "It provides a pretty clear advantage to some people," said Anne Friedlander, senior author of the study, which appears in the current issue of The Journal of Applied Physiology.

Originally conceived as a potential treatment for high blood pressure, Viagra causes blood vessels in the penis and lungs to relax. It won US approval in 1998 as the first erectile dysfunction pill, becoming an instant blockbuster for the drug maker Pfizer.

Last year, the company won approval for Viagra, under the new name Revatio, to treat pulmonary hypertension, or high fluid pressure in the lungs.

Altitude researchers saw the potential of the drug because pulmonary hypertension is also an effect of exercise in oxygen-poor environments. As blood vessels constrict in the lungs, the heart has to work harder to pump blood through the body.

Early studies showed some promise. In 2004, a study of mountaineers at Mount Everest Base camp, elevation 5364 metres, showed Viagra increased the heart's maximum workload.

US researchers may soon begin testing Viagra's effects on soldiers on Colorado's Pikes Peak, elevation 4300 metres.

Los Angeles Times




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