Sunscreen: Cosmetic or Medical Therapy?

The document reports on a study examining the association between finasteride, a drug used to treat hair loss, and suicidal behaviors (SB) such as suicidal ideation (SI), suicide attempts (SA), and completed suicide (CS) using data from the U.S. FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). The study analyzed reports from January 2004 to March 2017, which included 9,215,422 individual safety reports (ISRs). It found that hair loss was indicated in 86.78% of all finasteride ISRs, with an average age of 33.97 years among those reported. The study revealed that finasteride was associated with an increased risk of SI, particularly when used for hair loss as the primary indication. The reporting odds ratios (RORs) for SB when finasteride was used for hair loss were significantly higher for SI and CS compared to other drugs used for hair loss. Specifically, the ROR for SI was 5.1858 and for CS was 7.9204 when finasteride was used for hair loss. The study concluded that finasteride is positively associated with SI and that the risk of CS is significantly higher when the drug is used primarily for hair loss treatment.