Is Viagra Bad For You?

If you’re experiencing erectile dysfunction (ED), sildenafil (sold under the brand name Viagra) can help you get your bedroom mojo back. But in recent years, men who don’t have ED have started taking Viagra without a prescription to get stronger erections, last longer in bed, and have less downtime between orgasms. Is Viagra bad for you? If you take it as prescribed, no. But swallowing it recreationally can serve up serious side effects, especially if you pop the little blue pill with alcohol or other recreational drugs.

Sildenafil is the OG erection helper. It’s ability to treat erectile dysfunction (ED) was discovered in the 90s by researchers who were examining the med’s potential to treat heart disease by dilating blood vessels in the heart. Like many other drugs, sildenafil is also used for other conditions, including pulmonary arterial hypertension (a form of high blood pressure that affects the lungs). Turns out the drug was good at dilating blood vessels all over the body.

After the FDA approved Viagra for treating ED in 1998, the little blue pill gained notoriety for helping men, many of them older, get and keep erections. And young, healthy men started to take note.

The Rise of Recreational Viagra Use

Evidence suggests that recreational use of PDE5 inhibitors—the class of erectile dysfunction medications that includes Viagra—has grown over the past decade. One 2011 study (1) of just over 1,900 healthy male undergraduates found that four percent of them had used ED medications like Viagra recreationally within the past year, compared to just over 1 percent who had been prescribed the drug by a doctor.

Viagra doesn’t get you high like other party drugs, so what’s the appeal? The bulk of the students surveyed said they took the pills out of sheer curiosity; others reported using them to counteract the effects of other drugs that prevented them from getting and keeping an erection, or to impress their sexual partner.

A more recent 2021 study published in Frontiers in Medicine (2) backs up the use of ED meds among young men: When researchers looked at Viagra use among 65 men over the age of 18, they found that a full 66 percent of the men used Viagra recreationally—nearly twice the number who used it for medical purposes.

Recreational Viagra Use Among Athletes

But it’s not just curiosity and lasting erections men are looking for. Viagra has also gained a reputation among athletes for increasing speed and endurance. “Most people would be surprised and probably even get a good laugh if you told them that Viagra and Cialis were performance-enhancing drugs,” says Matt Cowling, D.O., a physical medicine & rehabilitation specialist in Madison, WI. “The truth is these medications are commonly used amongst various types of athletes.”

In endurance athletes, says Cowling, the medications can cause an uptake in glucose by skeletal muscles, which can increase performance and boost blood flow. Bodybuilders also use the meds. “They help enhance what bodybuilders call a ‘pump,’” says Cowling. “They allow for increased glucose uptake in the muscle which gives the muscles a large appearance and allows them to engorge with blood flow. It also greatly increases the vascularity of the muscles giving them a very shredded appearance.”

Research has found that ED meds can give a performance boost to athletes training at high altitudes. At high altitudes, lower atmospheric pressure makes it harder for your body to transfer oxygen into the blood. Because Viagra helps blood vessels dilate, taking it can boost the amount of blood flowing to your muscles.

A 2004 study (3) in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed improved exercise capacity in a group of climbers measured at the base camp of Mt. Everest (elevation 17,600 feet above sea level). In a 2006 study, (4) four out of 10 high-altitude cyclists had better performance after taking Viagra by up to 45 percent. But some athletes found no boost from the blue pill. The researchers suspect that the drug only helped cyclists whose blood vessels were more constricted at high altitudes. It’s worth noting though that these studies were very small, and done at extremely high altitudes at which oxygen levels were seriously diminished.

The everyday runner looking for more power for a run or workout isn’t likely to see any benefit. And it’s never a good idea to take ED meds that haven’t been prescribed by a doctor to treat ED, especially because if you order meds off the internet, you never know what you’re going to get. Cowling says he wouldn’t prescribe Viagra to an athlete just to get a performance boost. “But athletes are certainly obtaining them, either on the internet or by using the diagnosis of erectile dysfunction to get them.”