Now, thanks to a Distinguished Professor of Clinical Medicine and Urology at the University of California, San Francisco, PFS is spilling ink not only on newsstands, but in bookstores, too.
In this new, 203-page work—which Nobel Prize winner Stanley Prusiner, MD, calls “fascinating”—Dr. Ryan “explores the complex chemical system responsible for a diverse spectrum of human behaviors and health in both men and women. [He] taps his vast experience treating prostate cancer with testosterone-lowering therapy, observing that this often leads to profound changes in the patients’ perspectives on their lives and relationships.”
And in a section titled “The Business of Baldness and the Dangers of Baldness Correction,” he discusses PFS at length.
“Propecia is a low-dose drug, and it was supposed to manipulate testosterone only in the scalp. Instead, it had done a number on Lars’s brain, bringing on episodes of depression, irritability, and aggression that changed his life,” writes Dr. Ryan of one of two PFS patients he interviewed.
“I’m inclined to believe the medication had something to do with it,” he continues. “First, we’re not talking about just a handful of men who experienced similar symptoms in response to taking finasteride products… Second, it’s biologically plausible that finasteride was causing these problems because we know that 5AR, the enzyme that converts testosterone into DHT—the enzyme blocked by finasteride—is heavily active in the parts of the brain known as the ‘reward pathways’… impairment of these circuits can lead to a lack of enthusiasm for things like sex and work. Third, DHT and testosterone aren’t the only hormones that interact with 5AR, and in fact research into the dynamics of various hormone levels in cerebrospinal fluid had revealed that they decrease in response to finasteride or other drugs that impair 5AR.”
