Correct me if I am wrong (I am just assuming here) but if finasteride inhibits testosterone from converting to DHT, then surely there's going to be MORE free testosterone in the body?
Testosterone ... comes into contact with 5AR... ooops... nope, not bonding with me, I prefer to have sex with finasteride... so piss off... get back into the body on your own...
For example, gyno... erm... man boobs... are reported to occur and this is surely a direct effect from the free testosterone from turning into oestrogen?
It's hard to take the internet as gospel. People will generally report the negative effects of anything rather than the positive. It's blindingly obvious that people never say "it is working as it is meant to". Only those with problems say something, usually online, which means that products gain a bad reputation. I am sure if you searched for most drugs you'll find lots of horror stories... finasteride is quite special because some men report limp dicks and we all think with our dick so it's a huge issue. Our willies are important and we seem to define our manliness with them, so of course people are going to report about bad experiences online, with relative anonymity. I wouldn't dare tell anyone if I experienced a floppy c***... in person, at least. I wouldn't have much of an issue reporting it on these forums...
But, how can we trust drug companies? They're going to use the best results they seen as marketing, and will ignore any sh*t results. They exist to make money and can corrupt data, but my feelings are that if finasteride was so bad why hasn't any government banned it? Red Bull was banned in a few European countries for a while!