Psychiatric Study of Depression and Suicidal Thoughts among Finasteride Users

This is from the Sept 2012 "Journal of Clinical Psychiatry," and while it might be something that gets filed in the NSS (No S*$t Sherlock) category, it's still interesting.

I'm just excerpting bits, since I'm copying by hand, but I think this is available online or at psychiatrist.com:

In 2010-11 former users of Finasteride (61) with persistent sexual side effects for more than 3 months were administered standardized interviews. All users were otherwise healthy men with no baseline sexual function, chronic medical conditions or use of oral prescription meds before or during finasteride use.

A control group of 29 men had MPB but had never used finasteride and denied any history of psychiatric conditions or medications.

Result:
The rate of depressive symptoms were significantly higher in the former finasteride users (74%, 46/61) as compared to the controls (3/29, 10%).
Moderate or severe depressive symptoms were present in 64% of the finasteride group and 0% of the controls. Suicidal thoughts were present in 44% (27/61) of the group and in 3% of the controls (1/29).

Conclusion: Clinicians and potential users of finasteride should be aware of the potential risk of depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts. The preliminary findings of this study warrant further research within controlled studies.

The study mentions how Propecia's US label has been changed to list depression as a side effect (in 2010) and that sexual sides might persist (april 2012).

Granted, not having your sexual performance/function working is enough to probably bum one out, but the study does say in it's "Discussion" section that "it is reasonable to hypothesize that finasteride is associated with depression independently of the sexual dysfunction, especially in the context of 2 human studies of finasteride and depression in younger populations."

It also details how finasteride might mess with GABA as a neurotransmitter, which I believe is something that's been discussed on this forum before.

It's pretty dense, the full article that is, and not a ton of fun to read, but I know some you science-buff on here might want to check it out. All in all though, it's not surprising and could lead to a bigger study down the road. I know CS, myself, and others wouldn't be surprised if in 2 to 3 years it was announced to the mainstream that Propecia is bad for your brain.

Great find, man. Further motivation for me to stay away from Fin.

Yup, wish I never took that stuff! Been off it for a long time now but it definitely screwed me up for a while and I couldn't even really tell how bad it was until I had been quit for a good year and then looked back on how I was. It made me SUPER introverted and anti-social, depressed, anxious and I swear it made my junk shrink luckily for me I have recovered form all of that. The only thing that made me finally quit it was when my balls started randomly hurting off and on and my penis which I was telling myself I was imagining shrinking at the time became numb.

these men suffered persistent side effects, most do not. surely persistent effects of a drug which dont terminate following terminiation of the drug would contribute to depression.

That study is inconclusive for a few reasons.

First it does not mention that the test group had no previous history of depression whereas the control group is specific to never having depression.

Second- It stands to reason that men who care about losing their hair (those who would take finasteride) are more psychologically affected by mpb (i.e. depressed) to begin with, than men who don't use finasteride (i.e. MPB bothers them much less or not at all).

Third- The test group is no longer taking finasteride, and the reasons for depression, (aside from the existing depression over losing their hair in the first place vs. the conrol) could be numerous. They say they were able to separate loss of sex drive from the depression equation. I'd like to know how that is possible? How about the depression that would come with finstaride being a failure for them and continuing hair loss?

Fourth and probably most important- What the hell kind of control group is that!! I proper control group would be former finasteride users WITHOUT continuing sexual side-effects, NOT men who have never used finasteride. That is absurd.

Finasteride is an effective poison, not always for hairloss though.

Paradox wrote:That study is inconclusive for a few reasons.

First it does not mention that the test group had no previous history of depression whereas the control group is specific to never having depression.

Second- It stands to reason that men who care about losing their hair (those who would take finasteride) are more psychologically affected by mpb (i.e. depressed) to begin with, than men who don't use finasteride (i.e. MPB bothers them much less or not at all).

Third- The test group is no longer taking finasteride, and the reasons for depression, (aside from the existing depression over losing their hair in the first place vs. the conrol) could be numerous. They say they were able to separate loss of sex drive from the depression equation. I'd like to know how that is possible? How about the depression that would come with finstaride being a failure for them and continuing hair loss?

Fourth and probably most important- What the hell kind of control group is that!! I proper control group would be former finasteride users WITHOUT continuing sexual side-effects, NOT men who have never used finasteride. That is absurd.

Paradox, I get your concern, but first of all - don't shoot the messenger. Not that you were attacking me, but you're making claims about the study as a whole that I paraphrased. There's two pages that go into detail of how they interviewed and screened subjects, look it up if you're interested.

It does say that NONE of the study or control group had had previous depressive or sexual sides before taking propecia and partaking in the study. So while you're correct, MPB sufferers might be more prone to depression, the men in the study had indicated they were not.

Lastly, I doubt it would be easy to find members of a study group who were still on finesteride and not having side effects - why would that study ever come up? Hey check out this study we did on people who are taking this pill and not having sides. What good does that do?

Again, I didn't create or author the study, I just thought it was interesting. Especially because there are so FEW studies regarding finasteride and its sides that we, the public, are privy to. So yes it's a small study, and that's why the conclusion states that it's worth doing more, larger studies to get more conclusions.

I mean, shit, of course it had to be from a psychiatric journal and not the AMA or other journal because none of them could probably get any traction or funding to do a study showing the downsides of finasteride. Like many other drugs, if it was discovered that this stuff does more long term harm than good it would be devastating to big pharma.

Like many other drugs, if it was discovered that this stuff does more long term harm than good it would be devastating to big pharma.

I get your point, however in many cases their profits often heavily excess judicial fines tied to specific product.

Looking at recent "accepted" vaccine studies, I just don't believe that "THEY" prioritize human health as much as monetary wealth.