As I was watching the news one of the stories featured really sparked my interest. As it turns out a popular
hair replacement drug
propecia causes men to be impotent. Since I am in the
hair restoration
business I decided to copy this news story onto my blog, I believe more
people have to be warned about the dangerous side effects of these hair
replacement drugs.
Baldness drug Propecia making men impotent, says study
- By Neil Katz
-
(CBS) Men worried about losing their hair may be losing far more than that if they take the popular drug
Propecia.
A
new body of research says 5 to 23 percent of the millions of men who
take the drug may become impotent and have lowered sex drives because of
the active ingredient finasteride. And the problem may linger years
after they stop taking the drug.
The story is coming to the fore as two new studies were published in "The Journal of Sexual Medicine" this month.
Young
men are being prescribed these drugs, "as hair loss treatments that may
negatively impact their sexual life, possibly for a prolonged time
after stopping the medication," said the journal's editor-in-chief, Dr.
Irwin Goldstein, in a statement.
In one paper which analyzed
previous studies, researchers led by Dr. Abdulmaged M. Traish of the
Boston University School of Medicine, found a small but significant
percent of men suffered from erectile dysfunction, reduced ejaculation
and semen volume after taking the drug. Traish told CBS News what really
worried him was the long term effects.
"What is really important is not how big or small this number is," he said. "But rather how many of these individuals will
continue to experience persistent side effects, even if they discontinue the drug?"
To
answer that question, Traish pointed us towards research from Dr.
Michael S. Irwig, who interviewed 71 otherwise healthy men who reported
sexual side effects after taking finasteride. The mean duration of the
negative impact was 40 months after stopping the drug.
Irwig's
study, also published in "The Journal of Sexual Medicine," had some
caveats. The men were not randomly selected, but rather picked off of a
popular website for problems with finasteride and the men were not
tested for hormone levels.
Finasteride is also found in Proscar, a drug designed to help with prostate swelling.
The
cruel irony of the findings, if they hold up, is that once men stop
taking Propecia their hair loss returns, but the side effects may linger
for years.
There is a
class action lawsuit in Canada and a smaller suit in the States. The full studies can be found in the March issue of
"The Journal of Sexual Medicine"
here and
here.
From a CBS news article
David Hansen
www.davidhansen.com