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Boldy, thanks for pointing out the St. John's Wort. I'm trying it now and will report back in some time.
Regarding some of the paranoid questions asked here...
Regarding some of the paranoid questions asked here...
- St. John's Wort reduces estrogen, but also as a "side effect" compels the body to process many drugs and get them out of the system more quickly, thereby making them less effective. That's exactly the kind of side effect we want, assuming RU is actually one of the drugs that functions that way (via the liver, I guess? Not sure here.). If you rely on some other more important medications, then no, you probably shouldn't use St. John's Wort.
- Clinical studies have administered up to 1800mg/day of St. John's Wort. When you consider that independent studies found that efficacy between brand of St. John's Wort varied greatly, Boldy's dose of ~2600mg/day is probably normal.
- A long-term study of one year usage (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19299116) of 440 people taking 500mg/day had only a few instances (30) of minor side effects which were "possibly or probably" related to the Wort. No study so far has found that long-term usage coincides with more frequent or more severe side effects than short-term usage.
- On that note of good brands vs. bad brands, the best/most effective ones, due to their amount of hypericin and hyperforin, were found to be these:
- Nature’s Way Standardized Extract
- Natrol Mood Support
- More stuff here: https://www.cspinet.org/nah/9_00/stjohnswort.html
- Regarding why RU was discontinued, there's a long thread on some other forum talking about this which showed a (purported) report by the company that concluded that even short-term usage of RU can cause sudden and irreversible brain damage.
Just kidding!
Actually, what it said was that they considered RU to be a great alternative to Finasteride, but interestingly it called the hair loss market and its profit potential "mediocre." Somebody chimed in -- and I have no idea if these statistics are accurate -- and said that Finasteride outsells Rogaine/Minoxidil 10 to 1 despite its risk for side effects which, as you know, scare a lot of people away from even trying it. Not to mention Rogaine is available over the counter, Finasteride requires a prescription, AND it's a lot more expensive.
So one conclusion from that is that a LOT more people would rather take a pill than put up with a greasy topical that makes their hair look bad and needs to be applied every day, only to hopefully retain some of their hair and barely regain any, if any at all. Since RU is another topical, if this is true, that may be the end of the mystery.
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