Men on Viagra may reduce their Alzheimer's risk – study (opens in new tab)

I also recommend to check the /r/nootropics subreddit threads [1] on the topic.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/search?q=Phosphodiestera...

Does the main Viagra side effect have anything to do with it? A little more action might be helping too.

Can women take viagra too? For the same cognitive effect?

The parent post makes a good point that it’s very hard to do this kind of research well. We should default to skepticism. There is a replication crisis on right now.

You're reading the comment wrong.

There's two mindsets:

1) An emotional one. "Words impact emotions"

2) A logical one. "Study has issues 1, 2, and 3"

Both have places, but science must be in #2 to work at all. That is the point of science.

One of the critical parts of this mindset is separating criticism of work, quality of work, and the individual. Indeed, the more significant the science, the more it needs criticism. There is little (and probably even a negative) correlation between the quality of science and the quantity of criticism.

If I list out the limitations of your work in a blog post, that is not, should not, and cannot be read as a condemnation of your work, and especially not of you as an individual.

Indeed, generally, what that means is I took an interest in your work, found it compelling enough to do a deep dive, and I wrote a blog post because I'm trying to figure out next steps.

There is a pipeline from speculation to hypothesis to theory to fact, and it RELIES on people doing their best to invalidate a piece of work, understand methodological limitations, find alternative explanations, and otherwise poke holes. Once those holes are filled, and there are no more criticisms, you have trustworthy knowledge.

PLEASE attack my work (so long as you do it honestly and correctly; not unhinged emotional attacks). It makes my work better.

The problem with a lot modern science is that you're dealing with a virtually infinite numbers of variables both environmentally, behaviourally and genetically.

Short of having a thousand identical twins locked up in a room from birth you're swimming against a very strong tide. Long gone are the days when science was as simple as castrating a rooster and grafting his balls back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Adolph_Berthold

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

> Wouldn't taking these kind of factors into account be quite basic part of the analysis?

They acknowledge that they are just looking at the number of prescriptions and that the research doesn't show that the drugs themselves were reducing people's risk.

It could equally be the amount of sex that is reducing the risk.

Well, unless you lead a non-active life and hope to improve your health by taking viagra without the accompanying extra in activity.

I think that was the joke they were going for.

Yes, sex is just awesome in every sense. Regular sex lowers the level of stress in the body and increases the level of oxytocin. As a result, people feel more motivated to work and experience greater satisfaction from their work as soon as the stress level decreases. It also leads to increased life expectancy, so people have more time to work and more time to have sex - it's a complete cycle

Headstand, shoulder stand, downward dog… others are possible

But it's a drug already helping many elderly stay sexually active, and now they also remember with who. This is great news. And kinda funny.

Childish mindset is more likely to innovate though. For hacking ones environment, growing up makes one ineffective. Then again, so does low effort Dopamin bombarding content consumption. Then again it creates a nice little pocket universe meta discussion.

I think telling them to grow up is a bit harsh, but yes a thread filled with jokes would not belong on HN imo.

You must be fun at parties

I’ll take that as a no…