November 27 2006, 2:33 pm PT | Posted in: Drugs
For some time now, some studies show a possible link between finasteride and depression. A recent article, titled “Finasteride induced depression: a prospective study”, discussed this connection and was published in BMC Clinical Pharmacology and appeared online in early October.
Some of the relevant points from the article are:
5alpha-reductase is a critical enzyme in the conversion of several steroids such as testosterone, progesterone, aldosterone and corticosterone in the brain. This enzyme converts testosterone to the most natural potent androgen DHT, and also it acts an important role in conversion of progesterone to dihhydroprogesterone (DHP)…..A decline in serum DHT level occurs after finasteride administration. This may contribute to finasteride induced depression. We [the authors] couldn’t find any significant change in the anxiety scores before and after the treatment
The authors conclude: This preliminary study suggests that finasteride might induce depressive symptoms; therefore this medication should be prescribed cautiously for patients with high risk of depression. It seems that further studies would be necessary to determine behavioral effects of this medication in higher doses and in more susceptible patients.
For the complete article, see BioMed Central.
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Balding Forum
I started on finasteride 13 months ago. 2 months into treatment I did notice unusual anger and later severe depression that I had not experinced before. Although it was a challenging year personally and professionally my anger, depression and aniexty were uncommon and now possibly make sense if finasteride was the culprit. Tommorow (nov.29.06)I will stop taking finasteride and post any behavorial changes. For the record, after 9 months of being on finasteride I saw no benfit and began using rogaine and saw incredible gains in my hair. The benefit could have been from the finasteride finally working, but I believe it was the rogaine.
Anybody else have behavioral side effects, (i.e. depression, anxiety, anger after taking finasteride?)