Cialis is promoted as a longevity drug. How does it stack up?

Cialis is best known as an erectile dysfunction drug, but it’s also promoted for longevity. On the surface, the story is appealing: it relaxes blood vessels, modestly lowers blood pressure, and may reduce some inflammatory markers. Large observational studies also link drugs in the same class (PDE5 inhibitors) with fewer heart attacks and deaths.

Then Cialis runs into a less glamorous competitor: conventional medicine. Standard blood pressure drugs lower systolic pressure about three times as much and have stronger randomized evidence.

This article compares Cialis with standard “boring medicine”: blood pressure medication, the DASH diet, and statins.

How Cialis compares with blood pressure medication and statins

Most cardiovascular studies combine several PDE5 inhibitors, so they don’t tell us exactly what daily low-dose Cialis does. A 2025 meta-analysis of 63 randomized trials found that the drug class lowered blood pressure by 2.8/1.8 mmHg. One standard-dose blood pressure drug lowered it by 9.1/5.5 mmHg in a 354-trial meta-analysis. The DASH feeding trial lowered systolic pressure by 11.4 mmHg among people with hypertension.

How cialis compares to standard blood pressure drugs and dietary advice Sources: PDE5 inhibitors, DASH, and blood pressure medication._

(Note that PDE5 inhibitors must not be combined with nitrates such as nitroglycerin, because blood pressure can fall dangerously low.)

The inflammation evidence is weaker. A 2025 meta-analysis found that long-term PDE5 inhibitor treatment reduced IL-6 by 0.64 standard deviations, but short-term treatment didn’t significantly reduce IL-6, CRP, or TNF-alpha. Six weeks of high-dose tadalafil also failed to lower those markers in the randomized MAKROTAD trial.

Research mixes hs-CRP and IL-6, which are two different inflammation markers, so we’re not showing a direct comparison. Sources: PDE5 inhibitor meta-analysis, statin meta-analysis, and JUPITER.

Statins have very strong evidence from large randomized outcome trials. In JUPITER, rosuvastatin lowered hs-CRP by 37%, LDL by 50%, and major cardiovascular events by 44%. As yet, trial has shown that a tadalafil-driven change in inflammation prevents heart attacks.

Are Cialis and Viagra linked to fewer heart attacks?

A 2024 meta-analysis of 16 studies and 1.26 million participants linked PDE5 inhibitors with 22% fewer major cardiovascular events and 30% fewer deaths. Almost all the data were observational. Men healthy enough for sexual activity may already have lower risk, and people who seek ED treatment may be healthier.

The results justify a randomized trial, but they don’t prove that Cialis prevents heart attacks. Trials in other heart conditions have been mixed: a meta-analysis of heart failure trials found no overall improvement in prognosis or quality of life.

Should you take Cialis for longevity?

Conventional prevention wins this comparison. Blood pressure medication has a larger effect, and statins prevent heart attacks and strokes in randomized trials. Cialis has a small blood pressure effect, inconsistent inflammation results, and promising but mostly observational cardiovascular data.

Cialis may provide cardiovascular benefits for someone who already has a reason to take it. But as with many things in medicine, just do the boring stuff first.