Hair loss drug. Commonly prescribed.

A.k.a. Propecia.

It's one of the most commonly used DTC prescription drugs and is used for a purely cosmetic purpose, so debates about it are common online and full of low-quality motivated reasoning.

It decreases dihydroxytestosterone to treat hair loss.

Exactly what finasteride does is not well understood. It effects the endocrine system, but not in consistent ways, and with some possibly serious side effects. It is being aggressively marketed as a way to stop hair loss, but may do various other things instead.

I take dutasteride (even stronger form of finasteride) and have been personally fortunate to not have any side effects in ~8 years.

My whole family on both sides is bald bald. Without it I would have been bald bald in my early 20s.

I knew there were risks of hormone disruption/mood swings/etc but I still prefer it over being bald. I took a calculated risk and I'm thankful that the drug exists. Please don't prosecute the people that gave me the only real, working treatment for my baldness.

Finasteride every year changes millions of lives globally, I take finasteride, and it’s the sole reason i have my hair.

Idk about you, but i know 10s of different friends who also went through hairloss and were struggling to stop it, who went through severe depression, loss of confidence, suicidal tendencies in extreme cases.

Just because you saw a study that X drug causes side effects/harms in 1-0.1% of patients, doesnt mean the med should be taken off sale especially for a drug as important as finasteride.

It’s easy for someone to say it’s just a cosmetic drug until they go through the full extent of social, mental, and even physical damage, hairloss at a young age causes.

I and almost everyone who takes finasteride take it knowing the risk of a whole range of side effects , often far more severe then just increasing risk of depression. like risk of reduction in fertility, libido in some patients often struggling with obesity.

Obesity creates a whole range of problems too, should we start prosecuting creators of tasty food too ? , fin 1mg is one of the most impactful drugs sold globally both under brand names and generic cheap drugs (i take a generic one) that is life changing for almost a quarter or more of men depending on the country who face male pattern baldness and its related issues.

More studies certainly should be done in link of depression and suicide in some patient cases, but bringing out the pitchfork like luddites and asking to prosecute executives and scientists for a non-opiod, non-addictive, drug that’s been used safely for decades across generations, and saved families thousands of dollars (including mine) in snake oil salesman products that claim to treat hairloss but dont. They should get awards, not pitchforks.

> The executives and scientists should both be prosecuted.

For what? Many drugs have depression as a possible side effect, but that doesn’t mean they should be pulled from the market and executives prosecuted for simply the possibility of depression.

Negative reactions to drugs are always a possibility. Weighing the risks and tradeoffs and monitoring patients is important. This is why drugs like this are not OTC.

> Reports from trans people, way back in the 1940s, show clear links between sex hormones and depression: a priori, one would assume such a relationship.

We have a lot of data about trans women taking finasteride as part of HRT and depression, and the clear correlation runs in the exact opposite direction from what this article is talking about.

When I got it prescribed (in AU), my doctor told me he had many patients taking it with no side effects, and he also pointed out that the 1mg I was taking was much smaller than the 5mg some took for prostate enlargement. I also did some reading and never noted any links to depression. It just doesn't seem to always come up.

I think many men would also (naively) be happy to risk depression when confronted with impending hair loss. Ironically, maybe more happy chemicals are what's actually needed so we can feel like losing our hair is not the end of the world.

Alopecia Areata ≠ Androgenetic Alopecia

It's also possible that people taking Finasteride might be a more potent selection of people that are distressed about hair loss, and are therefore more likely to exhibit depression, etc. As in, if people with androgenetic alopecia are more likely to be depressed, people who take finasteride may be a sampling of those people who are distressed enough to seek and maintain treatments.

I would expect oral to have more of an impact on mood, but this article does not say. Good catch!