Viagra improves sports performance?

A player from the American National Football League (NFL) has just had a shocking revelation, his colleagues seem to be using Viagra - the famous medicine used to treat erectile dysfunction, to improve competition performance.

>>>'Natural Viagra' is about to run out

If what rugby player Brandon Marshall claims above is true, that proves, his colleagues had a tip to increase performance based on some science.

Sildenafil citrate, the active ingredient in Viagra, works by inhibiting an enzyme that controls the amount of blood flowing to certain parts of the body. One of these parts is the penis and the other is the respiratory or lung system. This is why Viagra and Revatio, a drug prescribed for pulmonary hypertension (hypertension in the pulmonary artery), are in fact only two names for the same substance.

According to researchers, Viagra - "aphrodisiac in the defense" - does not carry
Any advantage for the players to use it, except the psychological advantage on the pitch.

Even healthy people may begin to experience some symptoms of fatigue related to pulmonary hypertension when they move to highlands, where there is less oxygen and the blood cells in the lungs have confined. Many studies have shown that the sildenafil active substance can help reverse this effect, improve oxygen supply to muscles and compensate for a high degree of tolerance reduction.

Therefore, one or two Viagra tablets can help Everest climbers maintain their strength in conquering the highest mountain in the world. However, due to the fact that the highest stadium in the NFL system, in Denver, is only 1,600 meters above sea level, the "anti-defense" can help players use it. Are the advantages of durability compared to the rest?

A Stanford University study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology in 2006 found that under conditions of deprivation of oxygen at 3,874 meters or more, sildenafil reduces this oxygen depletion in total. 15% for professional bike athletes. However, the researchers found that bicycle athletes were divided into two different groups, one reacted strongly to sildenafil, improved 39% of performance, while the other group showed only Very little change in their achievement.

In the past few years, researchers from Miami University have tried to repeat the results of research from Stanford University with experiments that gathered more research subjects, including men and women, as well as advancing. operating at many different heights. They found that there was no clear benefit of using sildenafil at heights between 2,100 and 3,900 meters, but users of the active ingredient would have a clear advantage at altitudes above 4,300 meters.

As a result of studies on function only, sildenafil has almost no effect on improving performance for athletes competing at altitudes of 2,100 meters, higher than the highest stadium in the NFL system. This active ingredient also seems to not bring any advantage to the players to use it, except the psychological advantage on the pitch.