For anyone interested in a possible connection, I write about everything I found. Unfortunately there seems to be a lack of studies. I start chronologically:
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2002
Depression Circumstantially Related to the Administration of Finasteride for Androgenetic Alopecia
--> This was one of the first studies. Really weird, 19/23 of the people using finasteride got depression (and had none before), pretty much all after about 16 weeks. Seems weird. No placebo and small sample size, but still this is a huge number, 83% of people getting really depressed... All people recovered within 2 weeks of stopping finasteride.
---
2006
Finasteride induced depression: a prospective study
--> This study is much better. 128 participants. Not placebo-controlled, but people got slightly higher depressive / anxious scores. Not much though, we are talking about maybe 2% on the whole scale, or something like a 10% increase... Downside: They administered their questionnaires after 2 months. In the 2002 study, symptoms started to appear at ~ the 4 month mark, so 2 months might have missed everything that was yet to come.
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2012
Health-related quality-of-life findings for the prostate cancer prevention trial
--> This study seems to be the best. Unfortunately no full text is available to me. Its from 2012, >16 000 participants, placebo controlled. Mental health was measured by the SF 36 mental health part, which correlates moderately with depression, so it should at least have shown a difference if there was one. Timeframe was between -3 months and 7 years. No difference in mental health scores or any score to be exact regarding finasteride use, implying finasteride does NOT cause depression. Downside: The people in the study were age 55 or older. Who knows, their hormones are probably low anyway, so not exactly sure what that means to us younger guys. But not every old person is depressed, rather the opposite. (Depression declines until the age of 70, DHT declines as well etc...).
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There are lots of studies showing weird mechanisms by which finasteride could induce depression (not only through DHT, something with neurosteroids Allopregnanolone, GABA etc...) and rat studies etc, but in the end these are irrelevant if an effect does not happen with humans in human trials. Which I believe the above study has shown (that there is no effect of finasteride on depression).
Has anyone got access to that last 2012 study or any input? Am I right in my thinking that this relatively recent paper could demolish the connection between finasteride and depression / mood disorders in humans since the sample size is 100x as large as that of the previous studies combined and its placebo-controlled? On the other hand, these people were significantly older (>55 years) and who knows what role androgens play in that age.
There is a huge amount of studies on finasteride in general, most showing sexual dysfunction as the main (but rare) side-effect. Would mental health (if it was just a slight change of e.g. being 10% more depressed) even have shown up in these old studies? I am not aware of these effects even being mentioned in the placebo group of most large finasteride studies that were conducted, yet we know these events do happen for a lot of people in general (regardless of finasteride) and should have shown up somehow even for placebo, so it appears to me that apart from the 3 studies above, no study was even able to detect such effects.
Still researching and thinking if I should start finasteride this evening or not...
I am thankful for any input! Have a nice day
---
2002
Depression Circumstantially Related to the Administration of Finasteride for Androgenetic Alopecia
--> This was one of the first studies. Really weird, 19/23 of the people using finasteride got depression (and had none before), pretty much all after about 16 weeks. Seems weird. No placebo and small sample size, but still this is a huge number, 83% of people getting really depressed... All people recovered within 2 weeks of stopping finasteride.
---
2006
Finasteride induced depression: a prospective study
--> This study is much better. 128 participants. Not placebo-controlled, but people got slightly higher depressive / anxious scores. Not much though, we are talking about maybe 2% on the whole scale, or something like a 10% increase... Downside: They administered their questionnaires after 2 months. In the 2002 study, symptoms started to appear at ~ the 4 month mark, so 2 months might have missed everything that was yet to come.
---
2012
Health-related quality-of-life findings for the prostate cancer prevention trial
--> This study seems to be the best. Unfortunately no full text is available to me. Its from 2012, >16 000 participants, placebo controlled. Mental health was measured by the SF 36 mental health part, which correlates moderately with depression, so it should at least have shown a difference if there was one. Timeframe was between -3 months and 7 years. No difference in mental health scores or any score to be exact regarding finasteride use, implying finasteride does NOT cause depression. Downside: The people in the study were age 55 or older. Who knows, their hormones are probably low anyway, so not exactly sure what that means to us younger guys. But not every old person is depressed, rather the opposite. (Depression declines until the age of 70, DHT declines as well etc...).
---
There are lots of studies showing weird mechanisms by which finasteride could induce depression (not only through DHT, something with neurosteroids Allopregnanolone, GABA etc...) and rat studies etc, but in the end these are irrelevant if an effect does not happen with humans in human trials. Which I believe the above study has shown (that there is no effect of finasteride on depression).
Has anyone got access to that last 2012 study or any input? Am I right in my thinking that this relatively recent paper could demolish the connection between finasteride and depression / mood disorders in humans since the sample size is 100x as large as that of the previous studies combined and its placebo-controlled? On the other hand, these people were significantly older (>55 years) and who knows what role androgens play in that age.
There is a huge amount of studies on finasteride in general, most showing sexual dysfunction as the main (but rare) side-effect. Would mental health (if it was just a slight change of e.g. being 10% more depressed) even have shown up in these old studies? I am not aware of these effects even being mentioned in the placebo group of most large finasteride studies that were conducted, yet we know these events do happen for a lot of people in general (regardless of finasteride) and should have shown up somehow even for placebo, so it appears to me that apart from the 3 studies above, no study was even able to detect such effects.
Still researching and thinking if I should start finasteride this evening or not...
I am thankful for any input! Have a nice day
