Finasteride linked to cancer?

R

rtc84

Established Member
Reaction score
8
Is anyone actually cautious about this that they want to put cancer warnings on propecia or finasteride? I read somewhere a couple months ago that it actually only increases cancer risk by like half a percent or whatever it was (it was extremely small). Eating fast food once a month or being out in the sun often probably even increases cancer risk more than that. Just looking for other opinions on this though.

Before I started finasteride I read somewhere that since it's used to treat prostate cancer it actually lowers cancer risk. Then recently they said it's the other way around which makes no sense. Seems like they don't really know what's going on.

Are there any other health concerns linked to finasteride?
 
W

wstef

Established Member
Reaction score
21
They have to put these warnings on to prevent big law suits.

If food companies had to, we'd see 'can cause cancer', 'can cause diabetes' etc... on a lot of food.

It lowers the risk of low grade prostate cancer, which is often linked to the prostate enlarging (caused by DHT), but at the same time it makes it harder to detect prostate cancer because of it's affect on prostate specific antigens and the size of the prostate (i.e. it may not increase size enough for a doctor to realise it's cancerous).

It tells you on the label to inform your doctor if you ever get checks for prostate related illnesses.

If you have a pack of Propecia the leaflet tells you the potential side effects, mainly related to sexual ones, but since a handful - literally single figures worldwide - have had extreme reactions, like male breast cancer, they have to update their warnings.

Asprin can cause bleeding in your intestines, and progress anemia, cause issues with blood clotting (in the event of injury) but people take it like it's a sugar tablet...
 
W

Wuffer

Experienced Member
Reaction score
46
Finasteride increases the risk of being diagnosed with high-grade (more deadly, untreatable) prostate cancers by somewhere around 1%, but decreases low and mid grade cancer diagnosis by something like 25%. Since one study showed a slight but significant increase in high-grade cancer diagnosis, the FDA chose to include this warning on the product.

It’s quite heavily debated that this increase in high-grade prostate cancer isn’t accurate. Finasteride shrinks the prostate, which would make tumors (which would not shrink) more easily detectible during screenings. This could result in more diagnoses in people who take finasteride, which doesn’t necessarily mean that finasteride actually caused the cancers.

Since DHT is a huge contributor to prostate cancer, it only makes sense that 5ARI’s would be a novel approach to preventing this disease. I believe there are still studies underway that are determining the possible chemo preventative properties of these drugs, but it looks like overall there actually may be a decreased risk of cancer when taking 5ARI’s.

For more information, listen to this enlightening interview with the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society:
http://www.thebaldtruth.com/tag/finasteride/

His opinion is pretty much as powerful as it gets when talking about cancer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2023 XenForo Ltd.
Top