Nizoral and Dutasteride Together?

Hi Dr. Rassman,

Just wanted to say a very big thanks on how informative and up to date this website is.

My question is in relation to using both Nizoral and Dutasteride together. I have read in a few places the active ingredient in Nizoral has some sort of interaction with Dutasteride which reduces the effectiveness of Dutasteride in the body. Is this true and if so, is the effectiveness of Dutasteride reduced dramatically.

Thanks in advance.

I do not know of any interaction between Nizoral (ketoconazole) and Avodart (dutasteride), and while I attempted to research it, I came up empty. Where did you read that there was an effectiveness reduction? Perhaps I’m the wrong person to ask, as I don’t usually recommend either treatments (Nizoral never, Avodart rarely). If you’re taking dutasteride, you should discuss drug interactions with your prescribing doctor.

Nizoral is an antifungal shampoo, and although some people insist it helps to treat hair loss, this has yet to be proven. I honestly don’t think it works much better than any other shampoo.

There is some suggestion that dutasteride is more effective at treating hair loss than Propecia (finasteride), but this hasn’t been proven yet. Dutasteride has some history of sterility problems that concerns me (which is why I’m reluctant to prescribe it), whereas Propecia has no significant sterility problem history. Plus, Propecia is FDA approved to treat hair loss and dutasteride isn’t.