Decrease Your Risk of Alzheimer’s With This

Viagra comes with a risk of serious side effects, including sudden vision loss and hearing loss, heart attack, stroke, irregular heartbeat, melanoma, and death. Nito/Shutterstock

This product reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s by 69 percent, but it comes along with toxic side effects. Here’s how to get many of the same benefits without the risks, naturally.

Story at a Glance

• The erectile dysfunction drug Viagra (sildenafil) reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 69 percent in one study.
• Viagra comes with a risk of serious side effects, including sudden vision loss and hearing loss, heart attack, stroke, irregular heartbeat, melanoma, and death.
• Viagra works by boosting nitric oxide (NO) in your body; you can boost NO naturally by eating nitrate-rich foods, exercising, and getting sensible sun exposure.
• High blood pressure may raise your risk of dementia; NO helps reduce blood pressure.
• Beets also provide powerful benefits for your brain, largely due to their high nitrate content, which your body transforms into NO.

More than 6 million U.S. adults have Alzheimer’s disease. By 2050, this number is expected to increase to nearly 13 million. (1) Despite its growing prevalence, there is no known cure for Alzheimer’s disease and conventional treatments are lacking.