I agree. He seems more like an entertainer (which is fine) than anyone I’d look to for serious health advice. I can’t find any background on him at his YouTube channel.
People talking about him say:
So he works in the pharmaceutical industry, admits that Finasteride chemically castrates you, only has hair because of transplant, yet still continues to make weekly videos about why Finasteride is “risk-free” and effective at growing hair.’ I would not say he is reliable.
he works in the pharmaceutical industry and still tells people to get the generic drugs if there is a alternative to the brand name
I watched all of his videos and he never said anything like that. He does not work for the pharma industry nor is he getting paid by them. The one video he made on finasteride and fertility ( (1) Can finasteride cause infertility? - YouTube) he concluded, based on existing research, that finasteride only has a small/negligible effect on fertiltiy. He also takes both finasteride and minoxidil after having done a transplant because he was too far gone for medication alone.
Imagine if some randos on the internet claimed that RapAdmin said that rapamycin causes infertility and cancer and that you work for industries developing rapanalogs. Would you believe them? I would not.
In my opinion, Kevin Mann is getting a lot of hate from bald men because of his strong opinions that are pro-treatment and anti-shaving. Especially his video on how balding negatively impacts your social and romantic life has caused a lot of seething in the online alt-right manosphere ( Why going bald can ruin your life (youtube.com)).
Admittedly, some of the benefits he claims from finasteride are based on mice studies and observational studies. Then again, so are all the negative studies on finasteride. The rcts done on the topic show that finasteride is very safe and effective in regrowing/maintaining hair and for treating BPH.
Regarding sexual dysfunction, while it is true that finasteride raises estrogen which is a risk factor, it also decreases DHT which may be a risk factor for heart disease.
Most importantly for other conditions, showing a reduction in prostate cancer in RCT, that’s impressive to me as I haven’t heard of any other drugs reducing cancer rates in RCT’s like this.
But he also sounds like commercial for finasteride, downplays the risks and side effects. It sounds like it is a magic drug and drinking tap water has more side effects. On the other hand his stance on low dose oral minoxidil is completely the opposite, he takes side effects and complications from studies that use 6-10x the low dose used for hair and it sounds like fear mongering. He is clearly not objective. I watched several of his videos and while some information he gives is valid you need a very critical look at what he is saying.
I wouldn’t want to attack his personality, but from his videos he comes across as a troubled individual and while this has nothing to do with science and facts it is just another dent on his credence. As @RapAdmin said he is mostly an entertainer an not someone who is interested in presenting objective facts.
He works in sales for medical equipment which is why he sounds like a salesman. Despite that, he always recommends getting the cheapest generic for finasteride.
downplays the risks and side effects.
I think he went over the existing literature quite well. All rcts point to a side effect profile that is within 1-5% of placebo. Even mice trials are inconclusive regarding finasteride’s effects and in mice, finasteride acts as a potent 5ar1/2 inhibitor while in humans it is a selective 5ar2 inhibitor.
On the other hand his stance on low dose oral minoxidil is completely the opposite, he takes side effects and complications from studies that use 6-10x the low dose used for hair and it sounds like fear mongering.
True that, but remember that oral minoxidil has been far less studied at low dose and at higher doses, cardiovascular risks were indeed seen in the first clinical trials, hence the black box warning. I don’t agree with Mann on this topic but can see why more research is needed.
he comes across as a troubled individual
He obviously despises bald men and believes they are the source behind online fearmongering about treatment with finasteride and minoxidil.
while this has nothing to do with science and facts it is just another dent on his credence.
Be it monetary gain or personal grudges, the motive is not as important as the studies in question.
If a given YouTube / presenter has no scientific or medical background other than he or she has read a few research papers, you basically open yourself up to a vast number of poorly educated people offering advice. You may be different, but I just don’t have time or desire to try to sort through this vast number of people to try to get some tiny nuggets of wisdom that are likely to get more easily and more efficiently from well educated, scientifically or medically trained people. And, most people are going to naturally migrate to the “influencers” who are simply better at self promotion and click bait, vs. the most accurate.
All humans have “bias” so trading “scientific bias” for poorly informed layman bias isn’t a solution for much of anything, in my view.
If you are not medically or scientifically trained yourself, how much time can you devote to a given purveyor of opinions and data to judge how accurate, or comprehensive, or methodologically valid his analysis is. Given I have limited time in life to devote to this quest for healthy longevity, I feel I have to largely limit myself to listening to, seeking out, people with a strong background and / or proven expertise in an area…
How much can you trust someone on the Internet if you have no idea of the person’s background, or education, or biases? Sure, there are lots of very smart people out there, who have self-educated themselves to a level that likely is competitive with formally educated scientists or medical professionals, the problem is that identifying those people and separating them from the “chaff”, is an arduous process that takes time away from other important pursuits.
I don’t listen to anyone without doing the research myself and thinking about it myself. So some YouTuber(s) or personalities can plant the seed, but not make it grow. That will take time and energy, yeah.
I guess it will take me 10+ hours to research finasteride and DHT. Might take longer since it is a hormone.
But someone telling me that a seed planter has no medical background is of no concern to me. I cross check with my previous knowledge and what others have said. It doesn’t even register on my radar. I have to find out myself.
I posted about this in another thread. I don’t find finasteride to be appropriate for life extension conversation, however I can see the eagerness and desperation some people have to hold onto their hairline. That’s your call, but you should have informed consent about finasteride, it’s full mechanisms of action, and what it does in the body. You’re not going to get informed consent from youtube. Read the research studies and the package inserts. Look at the length of the clinical trials. Ask what information is displayed and what isn’t. And compare the Proscar and Propecia original packaging inserts both to each other, and to how they read today with post-marketing adverse events.
It’s important to realize not everyone will experience the same level of side effects from a drug like finasteride, and not everyone will experience side effects at all, and some people will experience severe and permanent side effects. We still don’t fully know why, but we do know claims such as “finasteride raises testosterone and estrogen 15%” are averages or medians, and some people have more extreme ratios (think bell curve), and these measurements were from relatively short studies, and the packaging inserts were written by the legal and marketing teams, not scientists. You don’t know where you fall until you get on it, and 99.5% of men don’t do bloodwork before starting it.
I’m not going to get into further discussion or opinion on finasteride on this forum beyond this post. I do want to share, for those considering it or who are receptive to it, that reducing the most male hormone indefinitely is not something that’s conducive to health. Robbing your body of DHT also robs your most DHT dependent tissue, which is the prostate and genetalia. There are specific forums dedicated to side effects from this drug. It really looks like a crap shoot. Some people take it and are never affected, some take it a few times and never recover. Do your research and look at the source material, read both the positive and negative outcomes and stories around each one. Then look at the marketing budget of the company that developed the drug, how it was developed, and what populations use it for what purpose.
No, not a single trial has ever detected permanent side effects, they always reverse after a couple of months due to finasteride’s short half life. Not even the FDA believes in the existence of permanent side effects according to a lawsuit from 2022.
that reducing the most male hormone indefinitely is not something that’s conducive to health.
Nothing indicates that finasteride causes an increase in acm. We do see a reduction in prostate cancer rates though. And 17a-estradiol in the ITP caused a lifespan increase despite also being a potent 5ar inhibitor so clearly DHT must not be an important hormone after all. And they even had increased muscle mass while retaining fertiliy.
There are specific forums dedicated to side effects from this drug.
There are specific forums for victims of ghosts and aliens aswell which proves their existence. Why not ask the aliens for life extension technology next time their probe our anuses?
some take it a few times and never recover.
They will always recover because finasteride leaves your body within weeks and your DHT levels recover to pre-use levels, as do your hormone levels in general. Persistent side effects have never been observed in any clinical trial and even the mechanistic mice trials using huge doses of finasteride (which acts as a dual 5ar1/2 inhibitor in mice) do not show any conclusive results.
Do your research and look at the source material, read both the positive and negative outcomes and stories around each one.
Or instead of reading internet anecdotes, trust the clinical trials and the FDA instead. After all, people are not trustworthy, especially not on the internet.
Then look at the marketing budget of the company that developed the drug
Which of course they all blow on this 30 year old generic drug for which cheaper alternatives exist.
In most men who developed persistent sexual side effects despite the discontinuation of finasteride, the sexual dysfunction continued for many months or years. Although several rat studies have shown detrimental changes to erectile function caused by 5 alpha reductase inhibitors, the persistent nature of these changes is an area of active research. Prescribers of finasteride and men contemplating its use should be made aware of the potential adverse medication effects.
Men who developed persistent sexual and other side effects lasting for at least 3 months after discontinuing finasteride continue to have a high prevalence of sexual dysfunction for subsequent months or years. Further human research is needed to compliment the important basic science work showing the key role of neuroactive steroids in neurogenesis and neural survival. It is recom- mended that prescribers of finasteride, as well as potential users, be aware of the potential serious long-term risks of a medication used for a cosmetic purpose. To help men cope with their persistent symptoms, a careful mental health assessment should be performed.
The study in question took 54 people who had erectile dysfunction and assessed whether their ED lasted for longer than 9-16 months. Those men blamed finasteride for their condition but whether or not finasteride truly was to blame for their condition cannot be established. After all, up to 26% of men younger than 40 suffer from some form of ED (and certainly they are not all taking finasteride).
ED is less common but increasing in young men. It was previously believed that only 5% to 10% of men younger than 40 experienced ED. But a more recent study showed that ED was prevalent in 26% of men younger than 40. (Boston University School of Medicine, 2002) (The Journal of Sexual Medicine , 2013)
Since no clinical, placebo-controlled trial has established the existence of persistent side effects and even the FDA doesn’t believe in its existence, it’s far more likely that the participants in this study were a bunch of anxious young men who took finasteride, fell for online fearmongering and nocebo’d themselves into believing they had ED.
Regarding the mice trials, mega doses of finasteride were used and as I stated before, finasteride in mice, but not in humans, is a dual 5ar1/2 inhibitor. The effects are also not conclusive. For example, in the following study
Conclusions. In a rat model, finasteride treatment for 4 weeks reduces the weight of the corpus cavernosum but appears not to affect the erectile responses to electrical stimulation of the cavernous nerve.
Finasteride did not have an impact on erectile function but rather on the weight of the penis in some rat groups of a specific breed.
Overall all studies exploring the supposed existence of PFS are of very low quality, are in-vitro studies or use specific mice breeds given mega doses of finasteride with inconclusive results. This reminds me of the unscientific campaigns against statins, caffeine and the covid vaccine.
Sorry: just so i can follow along, are the general “negatives” for finasteride really the negatives seen in TRT and increased testosterone? Or are they finasteride-specific and independent of elevated testosterone?
For me, prostate protection is a benefit so if this is disproven that would not be a positive for finasteride.
It is interesting to me that a drug such as finasteride could be so controversial as it has been around for such a long time and has a well-documented safety profile, and STILL there may have been some things missed. It seems to me similar to metformin or acarbose (yes, very different mechanisms but similar in that they have been around a long time and well studied). I am following the conversation closely. For the record i am taking 1mg oral daily for the past six months (which not long ago was considered a very safe dose) but always fret that i should instead crush it up and use topically, or halve my dose.
Please keep this in mind and keep an open mind when we discuss “well known truths” here in this forum, as not is all as it seems in some cases, and the consensus can be overturned by overwhelming evidence. I always keep in mind that science is NOT a democracy where everyone gets a vote, as most of the world “knew” the earth is flat (and some still do): lets focus on evidence and less on “this is an absolute truth”.
Regarding hairlines, for me i feel i look younger with a full head of hair. I’m sure others do as well. So if there was an inexpensive way to retain your hair without damaging yourself, id think most people (not all) would choose that. Perhaps if finasteride was known to be dangerous would people take it anyway? — probably not, depending on how good the advertising was and which celebs we’re taking it….
As someone who does not take finasteride, but is bald although I am slowly regrowing hair, I see the debates about it as being similar to those about statins.
I was prescribed a statin in the 2000s and stopped taking it. I ended up having Monacolin K as part of RYR more recently, but stopped because I thought it might be affecting my memory.
I am not sure either of those issues comes down strongly on one side of the debate. It would, however, be good that if people wish to argue a position on either of these debates
a) That they stay away from perjorative language
b) That they give links to any evidence.
Because I don’t think I need to take either fin, dut or a statin I don’t intend spending the time working out a considered opinion on them, but it would be good if debates on these issues did not have too much emotion in them. (or even any really)
The website Perfecthairhealth provides in depth scientifically based explanations of the causes and treatments for hair loss. You will definitley learn more there than from most doctors.
Hair loss is not just androgenic. Not only are there different types, but even with typical male pattern hair loss, it is a combination of scalp tension/lack of blood flow, scar or fibrosis, androgenic alopecia, and other factors affecting the hair stem cells.
Many people have luck with Finasteride. Personally, I was on Finasteride for a few years, and always felt a bit off - like things including my excercise and sex life were blunted. After coming off of it, things turned back around. Now I use a topical dutasteride along with other treatments. It is absorbed about 25% and is so highly effective in blocking DHT that only a small amount a few times a week in the scalp will do the trick.
I can’t imagine wanting to suppress DHT. It’s what makes you feel great and is a primary muscle growth factor. So if you want to exercise and have your body respond it is pretty important. I hear the above who say being a man leads to shorter life and hypothesis that is due to DHT. Maybe, but perhaps we could also have the best of both worlds by managing lipids and using Rapa to increase lifespan while still enjoying the male hormones we naturally have.
At any rate, many men do take Fin for hair loss. Check out the website above and you will get great summaries of the research and multiple choices for other things to use alongside or alternatively to Fin.
