During a recent appearance on TBPN, neuroscientist and Huberman Lab founder Andrew Huberman made a recommendation that most men over 40 should consider taking a daily low dose of tadalafil, the active ingredient in Cialis, and not necessarily for the reasons most people might assume.
The conversation came up when Huberman was discussing what elite athletes, including NFL players and Olympians, are currently using as performance enhancers. He noted that vasodilators have become increasingly common in competitive sports, with tadalafil being among them.
“People are taking vasodilators,” Huberman said. “Tadalafil, commonly goes by Cialis, is a vasodilator that lowers blood pressure and people know of it as Cialis for erectile dysfunction, but it was originally developed as a d**g to improve prostate health because when you vasodilate, you get more profusion of the prostate and you need profusion of the prostate to avoid infections.”
From there, Huberman shifted the discussion toward general male health, making a recommendation backed by a source he identified as a leading authority on the subject.
“The basic takeaway is that most every male 40 and older should probably be taking somewhere between 2.5 and 5 milligrams of tadalafil,” he said. “Not necessarily for erectile function, although it will augment that as well, but to lower blood pressure and to improve vasodilation for the brain, for the prostate.”
Huberman was careful to point out that this recommendation did not come from him alone. He said, “I’m not saying this as a biohacker or a podcaster. We had our head of male s*xual health from Stanford. His name is Mike Eisenberg. He’s an MD/PhD. He is best-in-class in terms of male sexual health, endocrinology, etc. And that’s his recommendation and it’s one that most every male, maybe 35 but at least 40 and older, should take just as a preventative.”
He specifically cited stroke prevention as one of the key reasons behind the recommendation, framing daily low-dose tadalafil less as a lifestyle enhancement and more as a straightforward preventative health measure for aging men.
On the athletic performance side, Huberman explained why competitors have taken notice. “They think it might be a performance enhancer by delivering more blood to the muscles,” he said, adding that athletes are also using it “to lower anxiety pregame because it lowers your blood pressure a little bit.”
He noted that tadalafil is not currently on banned lists in sport, though he suggested that could change, given the pattern of how performance-enhancing compounds tend to move from widespread use into eventual prohibition.
The core of Huberman’s message, however, remained focused on everyday men rather than elite athletes. His position, grounded in the clinical guidance of Dr. Eisenberg at Stanford, was straightforward: a low daily dose of tadalafil for men 40 and older is a well-supported preventative measure for cardiovascular health, brain profusion, and prostate function, with the added benefit of supporting erectile health as well.
