Hair-Loss Drug Tied to Depression

Young men who took Propecia for hair loss and experienced its sexual side effects also had high rates of depressive symptoms, even after stopping the drug, a retrospective study found.

Among a group of men who developed persistent sexual dysfunction that continued for at least three months after they stopped taking Propecia, 75 percent reported symptoms of depression compared with 10 percent of controls who never took the drug, according to Dr. Michael Irwig of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

The symptoms were moderate-to-severe in 64 percent of the former Propecia users and in none of the controls, Irwig reported online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

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Propecia has been a popular treatment for male-pattern baldness, and sexual side effects identified during clinical trials appeared to resolve on withdrawal of the treatment.

However, emerging evidence has shown that in some men the adverse effects persist, and the FDA recently amended the drug's labeling to reflect greater concern about these problems.

Recent uncontrolled studies also have suggested a possible link between the drug, a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor, and depression.

To clarify this possibility, Irwig recruited a cohort of 61 men in whom sexual adverse effects persisted for three months or more after treatment ended, along with a control group of 29 men with hair loss but no Propecia exposure and no psychiatric conditions.

Mean scores on a depression inventory were 23.67 among men who had been treated with Propecia and 5.93 among controls.

A total of 39 percent of the former finasteride users reported having thoughts of suicide, and 5 percent agreed with the statement, "I would like to kill myself."

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Hair-Loss Drug Tied to Depression