Credit: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute researchers have found in an initial clinical trial that a drug typically prescribed for erectile dysfunction or pulmonary hypertension restores blood flow to oxygen-starved muscles in patients with a type of muscular dystrophy that affects males, typically starting in childhood or adolescence. Tadalafil, commonly known by brand names Cialis and Adcirca, reversed the effects of a biochemical chain of events that in Becker muscular dystrophy deprives muscles of an important chemical, nitric oxide, which normally tells blood vessels to relax during exercise, increasing blood flow and oxygenation.