Viagra gives plants a lift
Nitric oxide, the chemical at the heart of the drug's success, could work wonders on the food and flower industries, writes Paul Simons
Thursday September 12, 2002
The Guardian
Viagra, the popular drug that helps give men erections, could save plants from even more serious cases of droop. The most startling proof of Viagra's power over plants came from an Israeli scientist, Ya'acov Leshem, at Bar-Ilan University, who was looking at how flowers wither.
He had a hunch that Viagra might work the same magic on plants so he put some into a vase of cut flowers and found they stayed fresh and perky for up to a week longer than usual. Just 2% of the dose needed to treat a bout of male impotence brought a new lease of life to roses, carnations and African daisies.
"The flowers looked much fresher, their colour remained longer, and they were also much more turgid," reported Leshem. No one is suggesting spraying Viagra over plants to stave off wilt: there could be embarrassing side-effects and the cost would be prohibitive, but there might be cheaper and safer alternatives.
When you delve into how Viagra works, you find a remarkably similar chemical story in plants and people. "Plants share the same common denominator as humans - nitric oxide," explains Leshem. This simple, colourless gas has long had a bad reputation for causing traffic pollution, but nitric oxide is now recognised as a powerful hormone in humans. When released from nerve endings, it tells blood vessels to relax and widen to increase blood flow - which is how it gets a phallus erect.
greenhead said: