kavin submitted, created time 3 months 3 weeks (news.yahoo.com)

For both men and women, sexual problems are a common side effect of antidepressants. Viagra and similar drugs have long been prescribed to men in this situation. Now a study suggests Viagra may help women as well.

The study looked at ninety-eight premenopausal women with major depression who started to have sexual problems after going on a popular class of antidepressants that includes drugs such as Zoloft and Prozac. The women were randomly assigned to receive either Viagra or a placebo for eight weeks.

The researchers, based the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and other institutions, evaluated the women on a standard scale that ranges from one (normal function) to seven (most extreme sexual dysfunction).

Those who received Viagra went from 4.8 before they started taking the drug to 2.8 eight weeks later, on average. That was a significantly larger average improvement than the placebo group, which went from 4.7 to 3.6. Some side effects, such as flushing and congestion, were more common among those who received Viagra.

The study was funded by Pfizer, which the researchers said played no role in the design or conduct of the project. The results are published in JAMA this week.

Viagra has not been approved for use in women, and Pfizer gave up on pursuing that FDA approval after studies of the drug in women failed to show a benefit.

But the new results could prompt doctors to prescribe Viagra off-label for premenopausal women whose sexual problems began after they went on antidepressants. “This will change practice,” Andrew Leuchter, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA who was not involved in the study, told the Los Angeles Times.

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