Viagra Increases Release Of Key Reproductive Hormone

The little blue pill do more in May, when the blood. Sildenafil the generic name for Viagra also increases the release of a reproductive hormone in rats after a new study.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report this month that sildenafil increased the amount of oxytocin through stimulation of the posterior pituitary gland, a small structure just below the brain that regulates hormone levels in response to neural signals.

The finding is the first indication of a chemical mechanism by the erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra can have physical effects besides increasing blood flow to sexual organs, author of the study, says Meyer Jackson, a professor of physiology at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.

Sometimes called the "love hormone" or "cuddle chemical," several oxytocin plays an important role in social interaction and reproduction, including the triggering contractions of the uterus and lactation. It is also released during orgasm, and was associated with sexual arousal.

Oxytocin release is an enzyme that acts as a braking system, limiting hormone release of dampening neuronal excitation of the cells. The same enzyme phosphodiesterase-5, also limits the blood flow through the States the muscles around blood vessels.

In both places, sildenafil works by blocking the enzyme, which is essentially the release of the brakes, says Jackson. In blood vessels, relaxes the smooth muscles increases blood flow, which corrects erectile dysfunction, and in the posterior pituitary, the cells to stop responding. "The same stimulation is more [oxytocin] release."

He says: "I think this is a missing link in relation to the type attempt, the problems around the question of whether there other effects of phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors, which also Viagra, Levitra and Cialis.

The new report was published online August 9 and will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Physiology.

In the study, the researchers measured from rat pituitaries oxytocin in response to neural stimulation. If the pituitaries were treated with sildenafil, they responded to the stimulation of the release of three times as much oxytocin, as they did without the drug.

It is important that the others had little if any effect on the hormone release in the absence of stimulation, says Jackson.

"Erectile dysfunction drugs are not induce spontaneous erections, they improve the response to sexual stimulation," he says. "The same thing happens in the posterior pituitary - Viagra is not recommended for the release of oxytocin on its own, but it is the height of the clearance you will receive in response to electrical stimulation."

Although he does not believe that his findings do not essential questions of security in connection with Viagra, they believe that there are strong motivations for additional studies on the impact and use of new opportunities.

"A big question of our study is that sildenafil is exactly the same, but on the nerves that release oxytocin terminals [in the brain]?" Says he. The cells provide that oxytocin on the pituitary come from a brain structure called the hypothalamus sends hormones, which also throughout the brain.

Although sildenafil's effects on these routes are not yet known, the work by other researchers have shown that oxytocin-sensitive cells in the brain play an important role in the neural control of the erectile responses, suggesting that Viagra and its relatives can possibly through multiple channels.

The famous blue pills have other uses as well. Oxytocin has been linked to the ability to strong social ties, while sildenafil has recently been shown to improve the hamsters' abilities to the timetable for their internal clocks to overcome simulated jet lag.

"This is a piece in a puzzle, in which many pieces are still not available," says Jackson. "But it raises the possibility that drugs for the treatment of erectile dysfunction could do more than just for the treatment of erectile dysfunction."

Source : http://www.wisc.edu/