Note that there have been many reports of persistent physiological changes caused by 5-AR inhibitors such as finasteride (see: Post Finasteride Syndrome), some of which sound pretty horrifying, like permanent brain fog and anhedonia.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading through both the scientific literature and personal anecdotes and it seems like such adverse effects are exceedingly rare, but I have high confidence (>80%) that they are not completely made up or psychosomatic. My current best guess is that all such permanent effects are caused by some sort of rare genetic variants, which is why I’m particularly interested in the genetic study being funded by the PFS network.
The whole situation is pretty complex and there’s a lot of irrational argumentation on both sides. I’d recommend this Reddit post as a good introduction – I plan on posting my own detailed analysis on LW sometime in the future.
Note that there have been many reports of persistent physiological changes caused by 5-AR inhibitors such as finasteride (see: Post Finasteride Syndrome), some of which sound pretty horrifying, like permanent brain fog and anhedonia.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading through both the scientific literature and personal anecdotes and it seems like such adverse effects are exceedingly rare, but I have high confidence (>80%) that they are not completely made up or psychosomatic. My current best guess is that all such permanent effects are caused by some sort of rare genetic variants, which is why I’m particularly interested in the genetic study being funded by the PFS network.
The whole situation is pretty complex and there’s a lot of irrational argumentation on both sides. I’d recommend this Reddit post as a good introduction – I plan on posting my own detailed analysis on LW sometime in the future.