Health
Hair loss and prostate medication could also reduce heart disease risk, study finds
A drug that has long been used to treat two common men’s health conditions could have some unexpected benefits.
Finasteride — more commonly known as Propecia or Proscar — has treated male pattern baldness and enlarged prostate in millions of men.
In a recent study, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have also linked the “miracle drug” to cholesterol-lowering effects and reduced heart disease risk.
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The findings, published in the Journal of Lipid Research, showed lower cholesterol levels among men who took the drug — on average, 30 points less than men who were not on the medication.
The data was initially collected as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2009 and 2016.
A drug that has long been used to treat two common men’s health conditions could have some unexpected benefits. (iStock)
Then, in a study of mice, use of the drug for 12 weeks — along with a high-fat, high-cholesterol “Western” diet — was linked to reduced cholesterol, slower buildup of plaque in the arteries and reduced liver inflammation, among other benefits.
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“The most surprising finding was the human data,” lead study author Jaume Amengual, assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and the Division of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois, told Fox News Digital.
“When we observed the association with finasteride and plasma lipids, we decided to do our mouse study.”
Drug’s benefits and side effects
As a hair loss treatment, finasteride works by blocking a protein found in hair follicles — and as an enlarged prostate treatment, the drug blocks the prostate gland that activates testosterone.
Atherosclerosis, which occurs when cholesterol plaques build up in the arteries and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, is most prevalent among men.
As a hair loss treatment, finasteride works by blocking a protein found in hair follicles. (iStock)
Some experts have linked the male hormone testosterone to the heart condition.
The potential hormonal effect prompted the researchers to explore whether the medication could also reduce heart disease risk, Amengual said.
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Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, was not involved in the study but commented on the implications of finasteride.
“It stops testosterone from turning into dihydrotestosterone and thereby stops hair loss and also shrinks the prostate by 25%,” he said.
Side effects can include depression, anxiety and impotence, the doctor added.
In response to the drug being found to lower cholesterol and decrease heart disease risk, a doctor called for more research to confirm the findings. (iStock)
Dr. Brett Osborn, a Florida neurologist and longevity expert who was also not involved in the study, offered his insights on the uses and risks associated with the drug.
“Finasteride in normal dosages — 1 to 5 mg daily, depending upon the indication — has intolerable side effects in many,” he said.
“Finasteride in normal dosages has intolerable side effects in many.”
The drug works by lowering levels of DHT (dihydrotestosterone) in order to have the desired effect on the prostate gland and hair follicles, he said, “but it can also strip a man of his energy, virility, libido and motivation.”
Study limitations and next steps
The study did have some limitations, the researchers noted.
Out of nearly 4,800 total participants, only 155 were finasteride users, all of whom were men over 50. The survey also did not determine the duration or amount of the doses.
As an enlarged prostate treatment, finasteride blocks the prostate gland that activates testosterone. (iStock)
“We also did not examine the effects of finasteride in women or female mice,” Amengual said.
“However, this drug is not prescribed for women, as it could be dangerous during pregnancy.”
“This drug could be another tool in the fight against cardiovascular diseases.”
The next step is to track cholesterol levels of patients taking finasteride or to launch a clinical trial to confirm the link.
“There is still so much to discover on how finasteride works in our body,” Amengual noted. “But based on our findings, this drug could be another tool in the fight against cardiovascular diseases.”
The drug works by lowering levels of DHT (dihydrotestosterone) in order to have the desired effect on the prostate gland and hair follicles, which can cause side effects in some men, a doctor noted. (iStock)
In response to the drug being found to lower cholesterol and decrease heart disease risk, Siegel also called for more research.
“Much larger studies are needed in humans to confirm these findings before you would ever consider using this drug for cardioprevention,” he said.
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“It may end up being useful for this purpose in the elderly, who are at higher risk of heart attacks and strokes, as an add-on statin therapy.”
In addition to the study’s small size, Osborn noted that it was performed retrospectively — “meaning there was no control group(s), and that random effects, unbeknownst to the researchers, may have swayed the results in one direction,” he told Fox News Digital.
Dr. Marc Siegel, left, and Dr. Brett Osborn both shared insights on finasteride’s uses and side effects. (Dr. Marc Siegel | Dr. Brett Osborn)
“That said, the authors’ observations are interesting and demand further investigation,” Osborn went on.
“After all, lipid-lowering agents are one of the mainstays of cardiovascular risk reduction — and most Americans die vascular deaths.”
This study doesn’t mean that every male should start taking finasteride, Osborn cautioned.
Instead, he recommends getting regular exercise, increasing daily fiber intake to 25 grams and taking high doses of omega-3 fatty acids to reduce cardiovascular risk.
“For now, skip the finasteride as a lipid-lowering agent,” he advised. “As it stands now, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.”
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Eating too much salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but new research suggests it could trick the immune system into prematurely aging the blood vessels.
A preclinical study recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has identified a biological chain reaction that links a salty diet to cardiovascular decay.
Scientists at the University of South Alabama observed that mice on a high-salt diet experienced rapid deterioration in their blood vessel function.
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After just four weeks of high sodium intake, the small arteries responsible for regulating blood flow lost their ability to relax, according to a press release.
The team found that the cells lining these vessels had entered a state of cellular senescence, a form of premature cellular aging in which cells stop dividing and release a mix of inflammatory signals that can damage surrounding tissue.
Excess salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but a new study goes deeper into its effects on the cardiovascular system. (iStock)
The researchers tried to replicate this damage by exposing blood vessel cells directly to salt in a laboratory dish, but the cells showed no harmful effects.
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This suggests that salt isn’t directly causing damage to the vascular lining but that the real culprit may be the body’s own defense mechanism, the researchers noted.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16 (IL-16), which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16, which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study. (iStock)
Once these cells age, they fail to produce nitric oxide, the essential gas that tells arteries to dilate and stay flexible.
To test whether this process could be reversed, the team turned to a class of experimental drugs known as senolytics.
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Using a cancer medication called navitoclax, which selectively clears out aged and dysfunctional cells, the researchers were able to restore nearly normal blood vessel function in the salt-fed mice, the release stated.
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By removing the decaying cells created by the high-salt diet, the drug allowed the remaining healthy tissue to maintain its elasticity and respond correctly to blood flow demands.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system into stopping the cells from dividing, the study suggests. (iStock)
The study did have some limitations. The transition from mouse models to human treatment remains a significant hurdle, the team cautioned.
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Senolytic drugs like navitoclax are still being studied for safety, and the team emphasized that previous trials have shown mixed results regarding their impact on artery plaque.
Additionally, the researchers have not yet confirmed whether the same IL-16 pathway is the primary driver of vascular aging in humans.
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Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
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They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
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“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
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The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
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“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
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“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
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Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
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