Good news, bad news on prostate drug

[gmonasco]

The drug dutasteride, sold under the brand name Avodart, has been used for years to reduce the size of enlarged prostates. A new study promotes an additional benefit: It appears to lower the risk of developing prostate cancer.

But the study also revealed a surprising downside: Subjects who took the drug had heart failure at higher rates than those who took a placebo.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/study-242234-drug-href.html

[Fixed by 35]

Chill out, the men in this study were all over 50. Maybe their bodies couldn't take it. By the time I'm their age you'll be able to get effective hair loss cures at Superdrug and Walmart!

[KeepTheHair]

Yeah, these heart problems are really being over hyped.

I mean, those ppl were all in their late stages of life. LATE. Its only 15 more cases in a few THOUSAND people. Even if that somehow is accurate... it is nothing compared to having your hair back and young people are obviously at a very very trivial risk.

Avodart probably gives a person at the age of 20 the same chance of heart attack as anything else that is normal..like driving your car or whatever... or just sitting around.


Truly trivial. There will be a cure long before heart problems ever bother ppl taking dutasteride.

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

I am sure there will be some larger studies soon to determine if this increase in heart disease is real or related to the age of the patients in the study. One problem might be that you would have to follow younger patients for such a long time to see if there is an increase in heart disease. Hopefully, there will be something available for patients of all ages come into play sooner than the results of some long term study.

[KeepTheHair]

I really doubt this would change anyones decision on stopping hairloss. Hairloss is terrible and id rather increase my heart disease risk than balding risk to be honest. I could just live a healthy life and exercise and decrease it again...balding not so easy. Also, heart disease can be monitored etc. And once I am old enough for heart disease I can probably just drink a pill for a new heart lol

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

It is amazing how two poeple who are the same age with similar hair loss can have such different opinions and feeling about their situation. I have several good friends with significant hair loss and have offered them the hair restoration procedure very inexpensively, but they have no real interest because the hair loss doen not bother them at all. On the other hand I have many patients who come to see me for surgery that have very little hair loss in comparison, but it drives them crazy. They cannot stop thinking about the hair loss and it negetively effects their lives every day. These are the patients I am trying to help and hopefully be able to restore the hair loss enough to where they can concentrate on other more important things.

[Fixed by 35]

I don't think hair loss would have bothered me if it had started in my thirties or forties. I think it bothers me a lot more because it started when I was only 20 and as a result of the inability to 'conform' during this period of my life I have slowly become an outcast. For example, as a direct result of my hair loss:

1) I avoided my graduation at age 21 to avoid having a photograph taken.

2) I had difficulties when working for a large (big 4) accounting firm because they didn't like my 'image.' All their other young associates had lots of hair and sported the latest trends. I eventually had to leave and work for a smaller firm to 'fit in.'

3) I have received far more attention for my hair loss than I otherwise would, as none of my friends were going through the same experience. I have since lost these friends over the past few years and now most of my friends are significantly older than I am.

4) I have generally not been accepted into the 'young' group wherever I have worked and have always been treated as though I was much older than I was, so making friends of my own age has been increasingly difficult.

Some of this has no doubt been down to my own confidence, but a lot of it has been down to the perceptions of others too. I think unless you have a particularly strong personality it's hard to avoid being rejected by those of your own age when you suffer from hair loss and ending up in the 'old' crowd. I felt like I went from being 20 to 40 overnight through no fault of my own.