Probably, although more studies are needed.

In the first human study of its kind, Dr. David Kass, a cardiologist
at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, reported last fall
in the journal Circulation that Viagra can suppress the effects of
stress hormones on the heart, a potential boon to many people with
heart disease.

In the study, 35 healthy male and female volunteers were given a drug
called dobutamine, which stimulates the heart much as the natural
hormone, adrenalin, does.

Their hearts responded just as expected - pumping harder and
increasing cardiac output. The point of this was to show that their
hearts responded to this chemical stress.

About 30 minutes later, Kass divided the group in two. Half got
Viagra, the other half, placebo. Neither the doctors nor the subjects
knew who got which drug.

About half an hour later, all subjects got another dose of dobutamine.
The hearts of people who had gotten Viagra showed less increase in
contraction than those of people who got placebo, suggesting, said
Kass, that Viagra, also known as sildenafil, "acts like a brake on the
heart."

In the penis, Viagra works through a chain of chemical reactions to
dilate blood vessels - the key to getting and maintaining an erection.
In the heart, Viagra works through the same chemical pathway but the
result, instead of vasodilation, is a decrease in the heart's response
to stress.

In another study, Kass's team has found this decrease in
susceptibility to stress can reduce the thickening of the heart muscle
that often follows long-term high blood pressure, a problem called
cardiac hypertrophy.

Dr. Michael Mendelsohn, director of the Molecular Cardiology Research
Institute at Tufts-New England Medical Center, said that the new
evidence of Viagra's effect on the heart means that "it is time to
start studying the possibility of using Viagra as a heart drug."

Viagra and similar drugs such as Cialis and Levitra, said Kass, could
be taken once a day by people who have thickened heart walls, a
problem for about 2.5 million Americans with congestive heart failure.

A new study using Cialis, which is longer acting than Viagra, is
expected to begin this month. So far, though, doctors don't recommend
taking Viagra for heart problems.

Is lowering salt consumption important for health?

Many medical organizations say yes, though there's room for disagreement.

Last month, the American Medical Association urged the government to
develop regulations to limit salt - or sodium - in processed and
restaurant foods, noting that excess sodium can increase blood
pressure.

A 2004 report by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National
Academy of Sciences, said that healthy adults should keep their salt
consumption under 2,300 milligrams a day. Most Americans consume far
more than that, in part because the food industry laces so many
products with salt.

Lowering salt consumption can reduce blood pressure, said Dr. Lawrence
Appel, a professor of medicine at Hopkins. "Elevated blood pressure is
a powerful risk factor for cardiovascular disease and is extremely
modifiable by lifestyle changes including sodium reduction," he said.
"Reducing salt is even easier for most people than losing weight or
making other dietary changes."

While the American Heart Association and the federal government
recommend sodium reduction, a review of the issue by the Cochrane
Collaboration, an international not-for-profit research group, showed
that reducing salt intake is linked to reductions in blood pressure by
only a few points.

Moreover, lowering blood pressure by salt reduction may not translate
to a survival advantage.

A study published in February in the American Journal of Medicine by
Hillel Cohen, an associate professor of epidemiology and population
health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York,
concluded that people who reduced salt actually had a 37 percent
greater risk of death than those who didn't.

Salt reduction studies, he said, present "a very mixed picture."

One of Cohen's co-authors, Dr. Michael H. Alderman, president of the
International Society of Hypertension, has been a consultant, albeit
unpaid, to the Salt Institute, an industry group based in Alexandria,
Va. The Salt Institute did not pay for the study.

Bottom line? Take all advice on salt, including this, with a grain thereof.

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# posted by Network @ 6:07 PM