DHT in Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Are we at risk?

[alex85]

I don't know if I'm interpreting this research article correctly but are Finasteride users at greater risk for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) because it suppresses DHT? 

Find this kind of research terrifying, have been using Finasterde since I was 19 (1mg a day), I am now 37.

Article: https://alsnewstoday.com/news-posts/2020/10/19/dihydrotestosterone-levels-cerebral-spinal-fluid-pmay-contribute-to-als-study-suggests/

Study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/brb3.1645

[HappyMan2021]

Finasteride has been approved by the FDA since 1992 (and was researched decades before that to boot). I have to assume if Fin caused ALS it would be well-known by now.

[TheyLiveWeSleep]

9 hours ago, SadMan2021 said:

Finasteride has been approved by the FDA since 1992 (and was researched decades before that to boot). I have to assume if Fin caused ALS it would be well-known by now.

Sorry I don't trust the FDA and big pharma. 

[Sportman]

Well, every doctor will tell you to avoid taking Fin if you can. the Side effects are tremendous in the long run. 

Having said that I can make you a very simple example. 

Does smoke kill? Everyone will answer straight away saying "YES" However the real answer is " probably " 

People who has smoked for 50 years never had any symptoms other a lung cancer after few years of cigarettes. 

Nobody knows how your body is going to react however the side effects of smoking and Fin are well documented and scary. 

You can gamble and see what happen. I would not. 

[JDEE0]

34 minutes ago, Sportman said:

Well, every doctor will tell you to avoid taking Fin if you can. the Side effects are tremendous in the long run. 

Having said that I can make you a very simple example. 

Does smoke kill? Everyone will answer straight away saying "YES" However the real answer is " probably " 

People who has smoked for 50 years never had any symptoms other a lung cancer after few years of cigarettes. 

Nobody knows how your body is going to react however the side effects of smoking and Fin are well documented and scary. 

You can gamble and see what happen. I would not. 

You're just straight up fear-mongering here with baseless claims and ridiculous comparisons; why?

No, every doctor certainly will not tell you to avoid taking finasteride. Sure, 'if you can', the vast would say it's better to do nothing than take a hormone altering drug indefinitely, but the whole purpose of the drug is to help those experiencing negative consequences to quality of life from hairloss by stopping or slowing it down drastically. For most losing their hair who are bothered about it, it's the only real option, and without fin, this problem will worsen and continue. As such, it is recommended by many doctors across the world to those it can help, without any issue at all... there are quite literally tens of millions of prescriptions written and renewed for fin every year for the drug, so I'm not sure why you're claiming this.

You also have absolutely no right to claim that 'side effects are tremendous in the long run' - according to what and who exactly? Side effects are definitely real and definitely do happen in a low percentage of overall users, and they need to be considered and known of before deciding to use the drug. But, as I say, all of the actual literature published in respectable, peer reviewed journals consistently concludes the same thing time and time again: that finasteride is a very safe well tolerated drug in the majority of people. More than this, it shows that side effects go away completely upon stopping the drug if they do appear in the first place. 

Apart from the fact it's just completely ridiculous to compare smoking to finasteride, you're insinuating that side effects accumulate or build up over a long long time and then rear their head later on down the line. Again, all the literature shows the opposite in that side effects usually show up fairly quickly and then get better with time. In terms of the usual side effects related to low libido/sex drive and neurological issues such as brain fog, why would it even make sense for these issues to commonly arise years and years down the line when the downstream effects of blocking 5ar happen pretty much instantly? Your DHT will be fully crashed in weeks, any potential inhibition of neurosteroids and the like as a result will also consequently take place in the same time frame. So, pretty much, in a matter of months, your body will already have been operating in this altered state for quite some time and have been deprived of X, Y and Z during this period - it really makes no logical sense that the effects of such things would build up slowly. If I blocked Testosterone, Estrogen or any other hormone in my body, the effects would be noticed very quickly, not slowly and gradually. This is obviously very well documented.

Now, as far as could there be any potential implications way, way down the line that we don't know of, or currently unknown issues that could slowly develop such as what OP is asking about here? Sure. Who really knows, the drug has only been around for less than 30 years. That's still a really long time with hundreds of millions of long term users and lots of resulting data, so whilst we do have a pretty good idea that it is safe in the long term, maybe using it for 40 or 50 years straight could cause some issues, I admit we don't know the answer to this for certain. But you're going on as if this is a documented thing that's going to happen, when the exact opposite is true. Your comparisons are just silly and do nothing but provoke fear in people looking to sort their hair loss out.

It's not a gamble to trust in modern medicine and scientific data from robust clinical trials and studies. I understand its not for everyone and I wish we had a better non systemic option of course, but posts like yours are just straight up pointless as there is no substance to what you say. None of it is backed up by anything other than whatever anecdotes you've read online.

 

[Sportman]

On 1/19/2022 at 3:14 PM, JDEE0 said:

You're just straight up fear-mongering here with baseless claims and ridiculous comparisons; why?

No, every doctor certainly will not tell you to avoid taking finasteride. Sure, 'if you can', the vast would say it's better to do nothing than take a hormone altering drug indefinitely, but the whole purpose of the drug is to help those experiencing negative consequences to quality of life from hairloss by stopping or slowing it down drastically. For most losing their hair who are bothered about it, it's the only real option, and without fin, this problem will worsen and continue. As such, it is recommended by many doctors across the world to those it can help, without any issue at all... there are quite literally tens of millions of prescriptions written and renewed for fin every year for the drug, so I'm not sure why you're claiming this.

You also have absolutely no right to claim that 'side effects are tremendous in the long run' - according to what and who exactly? Side effects are definitely real and definitely do happen in a low percentage of overall users, and they need to be considered and known of before deciding to use the drug. But, as I say, all of the actual literature published in respectable, peer reviewed journals consistently concludes the same thing time and time again: that finasteride is a very safe well tolerated drug in the majority of people. More than this, it shows that side effects go away completely upon stopping the drug if they do appear in the first place. 

Apart from the fact it's just completely ridiculous to compare smoking to finasteride, you're insinuating that side effects accumulate or build up over a long long time and then rear their head later on down the line. Again, all the literature shows the opposite in that side effects usually show up fairly quickly and then get better with time. In terms of the usual side effects related to low libido/sex drive and neurological issues such as brain fog, why would it even make sense for these issues to commonly arise years and years down the line when the downstream effects of blocking 5ar happen pretty much instantly? Your DHT will be fully crashed in weeks, any potential inhibition of neurosteroids and the like as a result will also consequently take place in the same time frame. So, pretty much, in a matter of months, your body will already have been operating in this altered state for quite some time and have been deprived of X, Y and Z during this period - it really makes no logical sense that the effects of such things would build up slowly. If I blocked Testosterone, Estrogen or any other hormone in my body, the effects would be noticed very quickly, not slowly and gradually. This is obviously very well documented.

Now, as far as could there be any potential implications way, way down the line that we don't know of, or currently unknown issues that could slowly develop such as what OP is asking about here? Sure. Who really knows, the drug has only been around for less than 30 years. That's still a really long time with hundreds of millions of long term users and lots of resulting data, so whilst we do have a pretty good idea that it is safe in the long term, maybe using it for 40 or 50 years straight could cause some issues, I admit we don't know the answer to this for certain. But you're going on as if this is a documented thing that's going to happen, when the exact opposite is true. Your comparisons are just silly and do nothing but provoke fear in people looking to sort their hair loss out.

It's not a gamble to trust in modern medicine and scientific data from robust clinical trials and studies. I understand its not for everyone and I wish we had a better non systemic option of course, but posts like yours are just straight up pointless as there is no substance to what you say. None of it is backed up by anything other than whatever anecdotes you've read online.

 

I did not compare smoking with taking Fin.

That was an example which could have been with alcohol, sugar, fizzy drinks or something else. 

Ho come you did not get that?

But if you did not get that I can assume you would not get the meaning of my post hence your long dissertation about something we all know. 

The meaning of my post (again) was that you can take Fin for many years and nothing happen or have the worst side effects after few years. 

It is up to the individual to take the risk. That's all. 

My doctor has strongly recommended not to take Fin so did other doctors I spoke to and other surgeons on here said the same.  

People are free to take their own risk. I would not personally. That is my opinion you are free to advise people otherwise. 

Not extremely complicated to understand ?

Edited January 21, 2022 by Sportman

[Fabulous]

@alex85 I'm just curious if you experienced any hair loss or sides since you started finasteride. Could you please share a bit of your experience ?

[ciaus]

On 1/24/2022 at 5:10 AM, Fabulous said:

@alex85 I'm just curious if you experienced any hair loss or sides since you started finasteride. Could you please share a bit of your experience ?

Are we really curious? Or just wanting to bump a topic that can be used to help spread unhealthy paranoia about finasteride? Along with being off topic, someone's personal experience with a drug is worth what? Unless the person asking is their identical genetic twin.

 

According to the ALS Association, approximately 5,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with ALS each year, which averages to about 15 new cases each day. It is estimated that up to 20,000 Americans have the disease at any given time. https://alsnewstoday.com/als-facts-statistics/

----

And yet we have all these millions of guys year after year, myself included, getting finasteride prescriptions, all the way back into the early 1990s when it was first FDA approved. You would expect there to be a corresponding explosion in people coming down with ALS if there was anything to this topic.

 

Fear mongering topics like this hurt more people than they help.

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by ciaus

[alex85]

On 1/24/2022 at 11:10 AM, Fabulous said:

@alex85 I'm just curious if you experienced any hair loss or sides since you started finasteride. Could you please share a bit of your experience ?

Since I was 19, I have been using finasteride 1 mg per day (oral). No side effects to my observation. I am of course very happy about that! I am now 37 and absolutely as much hair as when I was 19.

[Fabulous]

@ciaus How did you get to the conclusion that I'm against fin ? I'm actually using it for about 8 months with no side effects. There's not a lot of ppl I know that have been using it for as long as Alex and I was just curious about his experience, mainly if he retained his hair completely.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Fabulous

[ciaus]

5 hours ago, Fabulous said:

@ciaus How did you get to the conclusion that I'm against fin ? I'm actually using it for about 8 months with no side effects. There's not a lot of ppl I know that have been using it for as long as Alex and I was just curious about his experience, mainly if he retained his hair completely.

 

People primarily come here to get help, and alot of them are already pretty stressed out about their hair loss. Reading what-if worse case speculations without sufficient evidence on one of the few treatments that actually work isn't being helpful. 

If you want to have a how-you-doing-in-general conversation, send him a private message or start a new topic about that.