Cialis Boner Pills Might Help With ... Muscular Dystrophy?

Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have come up with a doozy involving a miraculous flip-side for some boner pills.

Really:

It turns out Cialis, a.k.a. Tadalafil, might also help reverse the effects of a certain type of muscular dystrophy, a disease that results in muscles wasting away.

According to a Cedars statement:

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.

The study, which looked at nine patients and found improvement in eight of them, was published recently in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Cedars:

With a single dose, the drug, which works downstream from nitric oxide, fully restored proper blood flow in eight of nine patients in the study ...

It's all about the blood flow. What works for the penis, it seems, can work for other body parts. While increasing blood flow might not be the cure, it could be a promising development.

Ronald G. Victor, associate director of the Heart Institute:

Cedars-Sinai is planning longer term studies to determine if correcting muscle blood flow leads to a clinically meaningful outcome. This is not a cure, but it could be the first step toward identifying potential treatments for Becker muscular dystrophy. Providing adequate oxygenation to muscles already weakened by abnormal dystrophin may be a strategy to slow the course of the disease.

We're just waiting for marijuana to cure cancer.

[@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews]