Men’s Health Magazine Warns About Propecia?
Okay, so let’s face it, hair loss sucks, hair loss does make a man less attractive by a noticiable amount. There’s no avoiding it. Propecia is an effective medication at stopping hair loss and regrowing hair. Is it really safe though? I have my doubts. One could say that anti propecia blogs are full of men who had problems in the first place and that most normal men wouldn’t be on these blogs in the first place. But the other day, I stumbled upon this article written by none other then Men’s Health magazine. Here is the link.
The full article is not available online but the first page does a good job of describing what the article will talk about. Now Men’s Health is no subtle underground publication it is read by millions of men. I’m no doctor but when you block DHT by using Finasteride which also happens to alter how your endocrine system functions, things probably won’t go well, hormones are emotional regulators and DHT is a powerful male androgen. Obviously hair loss is slighty devestating at worse and dissapointing at best but is it worth sucking out the life of an increasing number of men just for hair? Men want hair to appear as if they are full of life and virility so isn’t it ironic that propecia kills that motivation for many men?
The basis for the article in Men’s Health seems to be the tale of a guy with side effects from Propecia. Then it references a study that says sexual side effects occurred in men 45 to 78 years old when taking 5mg of finasteride (to treat their prostate problems). That is 5 times the dose for treating hair loss, and the prostate problems themselves can lead to libido issues without any medication involved. The article fails to mention that.
The rest of the article is a story about a man named “Charles K”. There isn’t much science here, but rather, a story about an unknown man.
But why would 5mg cause any more side effects (I’m not even sure it does) when DHT is reduced by a very similar amount as with 1mg?
Whoever wrote this blog post is lying by omission. The article also talks about an extensive case series where dozens of men were documented to have suffered irreversible effects after starting treatment with Propecia. The doctor fails to mention that.
The study mentioned by the blog poster is actually a clinical trial and about as scientific as you can get. The doctor writes “That is 5 times the dose for treating hair loss, and the prostate problems themselves can lead to libido issues without any medication involved. The article fails to mention that.” Prostate problems are also present in the placebo, and finasteride was shown to cause irreversible sexual dysfunction with a higher frequency than in the placebo. The doctor fails to mention that.
Mens Health – which I have been getting for years because of the articles on sports-type stuff – is full of pseudo-science and quasi-New Age medical stuff. And this is where “millions of men†get their info, not in the publicly available medical literature (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) or tens of thousands of pages of info/data on the publicly available FDA web site (www.gfa.gov) that is associated with drug submissions. I’m not saying that “first person” magazine stories are not informative, but they are just that – written by non-scientists (“I’m no doctor but….) who do very little investigation and are littered with very little analysis. The quality of this article in Mens Health could have been easily written by my teenage son as a 1-day school project.
Grant, the case series you are referring to was a very weak and poorly conducted study. All participants were selected from a group that already believed their side effects were caused from finasteride. No physical examination or blood testing was done, there was simply a telephone interview conducted. If you actually read this study, you will find numerous glaring oversights by omission, which reflect the apparent bias of the researchers. I am not surprised any doctor would choose to overlook this one.
Look at the studies. Men who take 5mg finasteride for prostate issues experience a higher rate of side effects than men who take 1mg for hair loss. The study referenced in this article showed roughly an 8% incidence rate of side effects during the first year, and NO side effects aside from decreased ejaculate volume during years 2-4.
Studies done on 1mg finasteride almost all tell the same story: a side effect rate of roughly 2%. This article (much like the study discussed in my first sentence) picked out the study with the worst numbers and used it as an example to illustrate how dangerous the drug really is.
It’s all BS. Authors like to latch on to these types of stories because they make headlines. It doesn’t have to be anything resembling accurate, as long as it’s shocking enough, people will buy into it.
If you think your teenage son could have written this article as a 1-day project, I find it very funny that so many doctors cannot seem to engage this notion with the maturity and intellect of at least somebody with a high school background.
The FDA investigated their own internal database and determined that the data they have collected supports the notion that finasteride causes unrelenting side effects. I don’t know why either of you would attempt to override the FDA which has access to more information than than you ever seen.
The FDA also released these statements:
“Despite the fact that clear causal links between finasteride (Propecia and Proscar) and sexual adverse events have NOT been established…”
“This communication informs prescribers that FDA has not established a cause and effect relationship between finasteride and the sexual adverse events that continued after stopping drug use.”
“FDA believes that finasteride remains a safe and effective drug for its approved indications”
The FDA released it’s information based solely on a small number of self-submitted case reports from consumers. It should also go without saying, the popular anti-finasteride website PropeciaHelp strongly encourages it’s members to submit these case reports to the FDA. I even saw that several people admitted they did this multiple times! maybe even with fake names.
So there you have it. The FDA investigated the data they collected (as you suggested, containing more information any of us could imagine) and STILL could not establish a cause and effect relationship. What’s more, their databases for the last 13 YEARS only uncovered 59 cases where side effects persisted for more than 3 months after discontinuing Propecia. 59 cases out of millions of people that have been prescribed the medication since it was released. You would be hard pressed to find any other prescription medication that has such a phenomenal safety profile.
Hi Tex it does not seem that you have closely looked at the FDA report and are not aware of how things work in post-marketing reports so I will clarify for you. I suggest you learn a little bit more about this and you could even email them to request more information about how the process works.
Firstly, the FDA never declares causal relationships based on post-marketing data. They had a hypothesis that finasteride causes irreversible erectile dysfunction in some men, they investigated this hypothesis, and found the data does support this notion to the deepest levels of their visibility which is why they changed the label. They are conservative, by nature, so they always add that disclaimer when they make changes based on post-marketing results.
The reports are not self-submitted as well. Many of them come directly from Merck and doctors as well. This information is accessible for all to see if you feel like playing around with their AERS database though this is often time-consuming.
The FDA does not receive a large amount of post-marketing reports since it is difficult to fill out the proper forms (for both doctors and patients) but it is a sample of patients results, for whatever its worth. They looked at reports prior to April 2011 which is really before this website PropeciaHelp became widely viewed. The FDA also narrowed the case reports down to only the most exemplary instances where it is the most clear that Propecia was implicated in problems. They ruled out people with pre-existing health problems that may cause erectile dysfunction, people taking other medications that may cause erectile dysfunction, any history of erectile dysfunction, reports with incomplete or unclear data (etc). People will sometimes submit multiple reports to the FDA to update their status (if they haven’t improved) and these duplicated reports were also removed as well. This process excluded a very large portion and was done to eliminate the weaknesses involved in a case series to which you have indirectly alluded. This should give you some more perspective into why this type of study is much more powerful than which you credit it.
Lastly, it is not that helpful to compare Propecia to other medications, but it is very rare for a medication to cause irreversible side effects. According to the data and review put out by the FDA, the potential of irreversible side effects poses a concern that is not relevant in many other widely used pharmaceuticals.
I’m have having a 3,600 FU transplant in a month and when they said, “start Propecia” I said, “Hell no. You take the Propecia”.
So I’m transplanting sans Propecia.. I’ll keep the erections and still have hair, the way it’s suppose to be. Right? The best of both worlds? Look good and still function the way you are suppose to.
Yes and then lose all the hair surrounding the transplants and winding up back where you started, except you’ll be 3600 grafts lighter and have thousands of dollars down the drain.
That sounds perfectly reasonable.
Harvey Q: Now, you know that’s not the way it works. Dr. Rassman himself (and his office is not doing my transplant, unfortunately, as fine an office as he has) will happily do transplants on patients who refuse Propecia.