Finasteride Prescribed for Hair Loss Consistently Leads to Depression: Comment on 'Depression Risk of 5-Alpha Reductase Inhibitors: Impact of Active-Comparator Versus Non-Drug User Control Groups on Risk Measurement'

This review suggests a causal relationship between finasteride, used for hair loss, and persistent neuropsychiatric side effects like depression, citing evidence that fulfills key causality criteria and calls for cautious use along with strengthened regulatory oversight.

This meta-analysis reports that 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors are associated with a 31% increased risk of depression, with varying outcomes depending on the comparator group, highlighting significant heterogeneity across studies.

Current evidence reviewed in this study indicates that finasteride, a drug for hair loss, can cause depression and suicidality, with delayed recognition partly due to insufficient post-approval pharmacovigilance by manufacturers and regulators.

This review concludes that low-level laser therapy is the most supported physical treatment for androgenetic alopecia, but other therapies like nonablative laser treatments and combinations including PEMF may also be promising.

In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the authors found no statistically significant association between the use of 5α-reductase inhibitors and the risk of depression or suicide among over two million studied patients.

This systemic review and meta-analysis found that men with androgenetic alopecia generally experience moderate impacts on quality of life, but limited evidence of severe effects on mental health.

This cohort study found no overall increased risk of suicidal behaviors with finasteride versus dutasteride in men aged 50 and older, but suggested potential risk for those with a history of mood disorders.

This review discusses psychological treatments for alopecia, finding limited but positive effects on mental health, quality of life, and possibly hair growth; however, more research is needed to establish intervention efficacy.

This study found that ALRV5XR showed the highest efficacy for terminal hair regrowth in both men and women with androgenetic alopecia, with less treatment resistance compared to other therapies.

This study found that androgenetic alopecia is significantly associated with moderate impairment of health-related quality of life and emotions, but not with depressive symptoms.

In this study, finasteride treatment was associated with an increased risk of depression, suicidal ideation, and persistent sexual dysfunction compared to those not treated with the drug.

This pharmacovigilance study found an increased association of suicidality and psychological adverse events with finasteride use, especially among younger patients using it for alopecia.

This study found that initiation of 5α-reductase inhibitors like finasteride is not associated with an increased risk of depression in veterans, suggesting depression may be linked to underlying health conditions instead.

This study found no significant increase in depression risk associated with taking five-alpha reductase inhibitors for benign prostatic hyperplasia or alopecia, although further studies are needed to confirm these findings.

In this study, older men using 5α-reductase inhibitors for prostatic enlargement did not show increased risk of suicide, but had elevated risks of self-harm and depression.

This study found that daily oral finasteride may increase hair count and improve hair appearance assessments in men with androgenetic alopecia, but it also appears to raise the risk of sexual dysfunction.