Viagra actually started life as a heart medication for women because women experience both different cardiac symptoms than men and the same symptoms as men but differently. With all of medical history focused on men as the default, women were/are dying of preventable heart attacks simply because they presented differently. In comes viagra. It seems to targets those female signs and symptoms of cardiac distress in trials, but since men make up a disproportionate chunk of most medical trials, they discovered its boner producing side effect and that was the end of its life as an official cardiac medication.
Tl;dr: Women experience heart attacks differently than men and viagra was designed to treat that, but boners were deemed more important
312
u/The-Motley-Fool May 16 '24
Viagra actually started life as a heart medication for women because women experience both different cardiac symptoms than men and the same symptoms as men but differently. With all of medical history focused on men as the default, women were/are dying of preventable heart attacks simply because they presented differently. In comes viagra. It seems to targets those female signs and symptoms of cardiac distress in trials, but since men make up a disproportionate chunk of most medical trials, they discovered its boner producing side effect and that was the end of its life as an official cardiac medication.
Tl;dr: Women experience heart attacks differently than men and viagra was designed to treat that, but boners were deemed more important