The results of the study were published in The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, and, according to the researchers, the active ingredient in Viagra, known as sildenafil, converts white fat cells into brown fat, which burns your caloric energy much more effectively.
Dr. Alexander Pfeifer, Director of the Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Bonn and one of the authors of the study, explained that sildenafil prevents the degradation of cyclic guanosine mono-phosphate (cGMP), which is what makes it work as an erectile dysfunction drug. Nitric oxide in the tissue of the penis binds to guanylate cyclase receptors, which increases your levels of cGMP and leads to vasodilation and increased inflow of blood into the spongy tissue of the penis, causing an erection. Pfeifer says that the team has ‘been researching the effect of cGMP on fat cells for quite some time now’ and ‘This is why sildenafil was a potentially interesting candidate for us.’
For seven days, rodents were administered the potency drug by the research team from the University of Bonn, the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research. Team member Dr Ana Kilic called the effects ‘quite amazing’ as they found that ‘sildenafil increased the conversion of white fat cells, which are found in human ‘problem areas,’ into beige [brown] ones. Beige fat cells burn the energy from ingested food and convert it to heat.’
Pfeifer added ‘Sildenafil is not only able to minimize erectile problems, but it can also reduce the risks of gaining excessive weight,’ and it might be additionally possible ‘to decrease complications related with obesity, but this will need to be proven in additional studies.’ However, he concluded with a warning to those who want to immediately use sildenafil as a weight loss drug: ‘We are currently in the basic research stage,’ he stressed, ‘and all the studies have been exclusively performed on mice’.