New Study Shows Erectile Dysfunction Drugs Don’t Actually Prevent Prostate Cancer
For years, it’s been thought that erectile dysfunction drugs come with a bonus side effect: reducing your risk of prostate cancer.
However, a new study from Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, which took place over a four year period, shows there’s actually no link between prostate cancer and the use of ED medication.
ED is a common problem in older men. About 1 in 3 men over the age of 50 suffer from erectile dysfunction. 75% of men in their 70s have ED.
Drugs such as sildenafil (marketed under the brand name Viagra) and tadalafil (Cialis) have been commonly used to treat ED since they were introduced to the market in 1998. These drugs have always been thought to be safe and effective. Early studies on the drugs also indicated that they could reduce the risk of prostate cancer – a happy side effect that most of us just believed.
The new study, however, indicates otherwise.
Study Involved 364 Men Tracked Over a 4 Year Period
Researchers at Cedars-Sinai were tracking a group of 6501 men. They found that 365 men (5.6%) used phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE-5is), which is the official classification for drugs like Cialis and Viagra.
During the study, prostate cancer was diagnosed in 71 of these men (19.5% of the group) compared to 1391 of the men who weren’t taking PDE-5i drugs (22.7%).
Obviously, there was a small difference between the two groups, but researchers said the difference was not significant. Researchers also determined that ED drug usage didn’t affect the severity of the cancer in those who were diagnosed with the disease.
Of course, other people might look at that same data and think they can reduce their risk of prostate cancer by a few percentage points by taking PDE-5i drugs – but once again, researchers do not believe the difference is significant or can be attributed to the use of PDE-5i drugs. It’s just a product of the small sample size.
“More Research Needs to Be Done”
Ultimately, researchers cautioned that more research needed to be done to confirm the connection (or lack thereof) between prostate cancer and the use of ED medication:
“Future studies with longer follow-up and larger study populations are warranted to determine the association between PDE-5i and prostate cancer,” said the study's first author, Juzar Jamnagerwalla, M.D. in a statement.
Stay tuned for more information about ED medication and the risk of prostate cancer as we move forward.
