A Possible Idea To Prevent Finasteride Side Effects

[Afro_Vacancy]

It's just consuming fewer calories man..

Unlikely, and in any case, unsupported by the evidence.

Continual calorie restriction, by itself, is documented and measured to lead to a metabolic slowdown. If that had happened to Peterson he would no longer be effective as a public speaker.

 

[SteveTabernack]

Unlikely, and in any case, unsupported by the evidence.

Continual calorie restriction, by itself, is documented and measured to lead to a metabolic slowdown. If that had happened to Peterson he would no longer be effective as a public speaker.

Not eating carbs equaling weight loss is what is unsupported by the evidence.

And who is claiming he has eternally been in a caloric deficit? His maintenance level will of course also be lower after dropping 23 kg.

Not sure how "metabolic slowdown" would make a highly competent person an ineffective public speaker either.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

Not eating carbs equaling weight loss is what is unsupported by the evidence.

And who is claiming he has eternally been in a caloric deficit? His maintenance level will of course also be lower after dropping 23 kg.

Not sure how "metabolic slowdown" would make a highly competent person an ineffective public speaker either.

First of all don't respond to posts that you didn't read. Peterson doesn't just report weight loss, he also reports a reduction in social anxiety, in auto-immune issues, better sleep, etc.

It's also documented that metabolic slowdown decreases mental performance. That's well known and in fact been well known for 70 years now. It's also independently obvious.

 

[SteveTabernack]

First of all don't respond to posts that you didn't read. Peterson doesn't just report weight loss, he also reports a reduction in social anxiety, in auto-immune issues, better sleep, etc.

It's also documented that metabolic slowdown decreases mental performance. That's well known and in fact been well known for 70 years now. It's also independently obvious.

I did read it.

I was mainly focusing on weight loss from diet change part as I have multiple times seen you post diet advice that, in my opinion, is based on pseudoscience. Furthermore, It would seem obvious to me that there would be potential for better sleep when you're not a fat f***.

In the original post you said he claimed better social awareness, now it's a reduction in social anxiety. Either way, I don't really have an opinion on that aspect. Its hard to quantify and the improvement could be due to a whole host of things. Cutting carbs somehow being one possibility, I suppose.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

I did read it.

I was mainly focusing on weight loss from diet change part as I have multiple times seen you post diet advice that, in my opinion, is based on pseudoscience. Furthermore, It would seem obvious to me that there would be potential for better sleep when you're not a fat f***.

In the original post you said he claimed better social awareness, now it's a reduction in social anxiety. Either way, I don't really have an opinion on that aspect. Its hard to quantify and the improvement could be due to a whole host of things. Cutting carbs somehow being one possibility, I suppose.

There's little to no pseudoscience, I've actually been very careful to say what's speculative and what isn't, and to post bibliographic references when necessary. In some cases I may have made errors or been sloppy, but the general picture is robust.

In your own case, you're unfamiliar with something very basic: the mental effects of metabolic slowdown. You are not in a position to judge.

 

[INT]

Good, can we go back to talking about finasteride again?

 

[SteveTabernack]

There's little to no pseudoscience, I've actually been very careful to say what's speculative and what isn't, and to post bibliographic references when necessary. In some cases I may have made errors or been sloppy, but the general picture is robust.

In your own case, you're unfamiliar with something very basic: the mental effects of metabolic slowdown. You are not in a position to judge.

You've still failed to answer how the weight loss would not be due to cutting carbs and not by consuming fewer calories.

And still I never even claimed he was on an eternal caloric deficient. Even if he is, just lol if you think some caloric restriction will cause someone as brilliant as Peterson to go from a superb public speaker to an ineffective on. There are smart people out there who have functioned while on an alcohol/drug binge. Consuming just 2000 calories or whatever a day won't f*** you up like that, please.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

You've still failed to answer how the weight loss would not be due to cutting carbs and not by consuming fewer calories.

And still I never even claimed he was on an eternal caloric deficient. Even if he is, just lol if you think some caloric restriction will cause someone as brilliant as Peterson to go from a superb public speaker to an ineffective on. There are smart people out there who have functioned while on an alcohol/drug binge. Consuming just 2000 calories or whatever a day won't f*** you up like that, please.

This will be my last response to you, as you are not only uninformed, but you are also not interested in being informed. Your distraction is also disrespectful to @INT.

The effect of metabolic slowdown on mental health is well-known and has been well-known for a long time. For example, in Ancel Keys' Minnesota experiment, patients ate ~1,600 calories a day of mostly carbs for 24 weeks while doing moderate exercise. That's actually the same caloric deficit that Peterson had if one naively believes the caloric theory.

The patients subsequently showed signs of depression, hysteria, self-mutilation, social withdrawal, low libido, low concentration, low comprehension, weak judgment, etc. etc. etc. That was the measured norm in the experiment. In general, people who just cut calories report end up with modest weight loss, and metabolic slowdown. Yes, if this had happened to Peterson, he would not be more effective mentally as he described, he would be substantially less effective, possibly completely ineffective. Clearly it didn't happen as he is reporting what sounds like a healthier metabolism.

A plausible explanation is that he has some sort of auto-immune response to a lot of carbohydrate sources, and thus his physiological health improves when he goes on a ketogenic diet. One can't definitively say but I'd like to see more and better research on the issue.

Here's the video

Discussion of the Keys' Minnesota Experiment:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/10/hunger.aspx

 

[SteveTabernack]

This will be my last response to you, as you are not only uninformed, but you are also not interested in being informed. Your distraction is also disrespectful to @INT.

The effect of metabolic slowdown on mental health is well-known and has been well-known for a long time. For example, in Ancel Keys' Minnesota experiment, patients ate ~1,600 calories a day of mostly carbs for 24 weeks while doing moderate exercise. That's actually the same caloric deficit that Peterson had if one naively believes the caloric theory.

The patients subsequently showed signs of depression, hysteria, self-mutilation, social withdrawal, low libido, low concentration, low comprehension, weak judgment, etc. etc. etc. That was the measured norm in the experiment. In general, people who just cut calories report end up with modest weight loss, and metabolic slowdown. Yes, if this had happened to Peterson, he would not be more effective mentally as he described, he would be substantially less effective, possibly completely ineffective. Clearly it didn't happen as he is reporting what sounds like a healthier metabolism.

A plausible explanation is that he has some sort of auto-immune response to a lot of carbohydrate sources, and thus his physiological health improves when he goes on a ketogenic diet. One can't definitively say but I'd like to see more and better research on the issue.

Here's the video

Discussion of the Keys' Minnesota Experiment:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/10/hunger.aspx

Caloric theory... time and time again total energy intake/expenditure has been found to be primary driver of body weight. Hence, this recent meta analysis could not find any evidence that a high carbohydrate intake leads to a greater risk of obesity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29439068. But I'm the uninformed one.

Calories in/calories out is king. Anything else is cope.

I'm sure @INT wll be fine. It's not even his thread. Apologies for the derailment @Timii. Deniers of "caloric theory" are just one of my triggers.

 

[INT]

@JeanLucBB I see you disliked my post. Could you elaborate. I am curious, nothing more.

 

[Baldingat188]

There are enough independent reports of side effects to know that its a real issue. People report consistent side effects, often without knowing about them in advance . we've seen dozens to hundreds of posters on this forum, and thousands elsewhere. The same side effects are not reported by users of other treatments, so we know that they are regulated to the chemistry of finasteride. Some use the pharmaceutical studies as evidence in support, but the fact is that those studies did not test for neurosteroids, they didn't do proper tests of dosage, were found to have a lot of other problems, and moreover, the pharmaceutical companies have a history of incomplete honesty.

If a company released a drug tomorrow that inhibited DHT without inhibiting 5ar, every single one of the people who now cope by saying that finasteride is harmless would switch to using that weaker drug.

One of the clearest cases of side effects that I can recall is that of former poster @RhinestoneHLT . He took finasteride for nearly a year, and reported no side effects, just like in the clinical trials. What happened next is that ... it was his wife that informed him that he had sexual side effects. He was no longer slapping her ***. It's a failure of those studies that many men will not notice a ~20% decrease in sexual virility. He went of finasteride, switched to RU+minoxidil, maintained his hair, and his side effects went away after a few months.

That said, though the side effects are real, the drug is nonetheless very effective. The most likely outcome is that it will stop your hairloss, and you'll keep what you have. That is a good outcome, to top it off the drug also happens to be very affordable, I'm pretty sure that it's the cheapest of the available treatments. My sincere recommendation to most people is that they try fionasteride at a lower dose (~0.20 mg/day, like in Japan) and see how that goes. If they have side effects after a few months, they should stop. If the side effects persist, they should look into the CDnuts protocol, which people have had a lot of success using to end persistent side effects from finasteride.

Personally if I have a 20% decrease in sides that I can’t notice that is worlds better than losing my hair. That being said I really don’t even notice a 20% decrease in libido and I’ve been on it for over a year. If I wanted I could fap 5+ times a day , but I don’t do that just because of the slight chance that masturbation increases hair loss.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

Personally if I have a 20% decrease in sides that I can’t notice that is worlds better than losing my hair. That being said I really don’t even notice a 20% decrease in libido and I’ve been on it for over a year. If I wanted I could fap 5+ times a day , but I don’t do that just because of the slight chance that masturbation increases hair loss.

5 times a day?

Please, try that for five days in a row and let me know how it goes.

It won't make you bald.

 

[Athlete1987]

As you all know, it's more likely to get side effects from finasteride if you are expecting it, this is called nocebo effect. So I thought that if you manage to brainwash yourself to not get any side effects, then you might have a 95% chance of not getting them, which is good (hopefully this is the real probability). So maybe this video could be helpful

The problem is if assuming by side effects what users report. Forget that for a minute. Also forget the fact that I used Propecia without even checking the sides or worrying about them. I was very much thinking good things only when I first took it

Do DHT and Estrogen have specific effects in the body which propecia would interfere with?

Yes.

Does increasing estrogen like propecia will undoubtedly do make it more difficult to maintain a lean, dry physique absent of extraneous fat and water?

Yes

If you look at it this way it makes it very unlikely that by thinking positive thoughts/not worrying is going to help too much.

This thread pretty much goes through in a lot more detail how to get the best from propecia without sides so by no means am I saying to avoid propecia or that it’s evil.

Rather it’s a recognition that some of what makes it good is one side of the same coin as what makes it bad and to focus on the former and addressing the latter is the best way IMO.

https://www.gourmetstylewellness.com/intera...to-deal-with-finasteride-side-effects.110821/

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

The problem is if assuming by side effects what users report. Forget that for a minute. Also forget the fact that I used Propecia without even checking the sides or worrying about them. I was very much thinking good things only when I first took it

Do DHT and Estrogen have specific effects in the body which propecia would interfere with?

Yes.

Does increasing estrogen like propecia will undoubtedly do make it more difficult to maintain a lean, dry physique absent of extraneous fat and water?

Yes

If you look at it this way it makes it very unlikely that by thinking positive thoughts/not worrying is going to help too much.

This thread pretty much goes through in a lot more detail how to get the best from propecia without sides so by no means am I saying to avoid propecia or that it’s evil.

Rather it’s a recognition that some of what makes it good is one side of the same coin as what makes it bad and to focus on the former and addressing the latter is the best way IMO.

https://www.gourmetstylewellness.com/intera...to-deal-with-finasteride-side-effects.110821/

That said, the typical increase in estrogen from propecia is ~15%. That's not some colossal amount. As far as I know, men who report PFS don't generally have high estrogen. Thus, I don't think it's the reason for PFS.

 

[Athlete1987]

That said, the typical increase in estrogen from propecia is ~15%. That's not some colossal amount. As far as I know, men who report PFS don't generally have high estrogen. Thus, I don't think it's the reason for PFS.

I don’t know about the percentages but even at baseline level a lot of men have a tendency to estrogen related sides. In fact compare a man from 2018 to one from 1918 and the level of estrogen be it via greater body fat accumulation, plastics etc means that even without a 15% elevation, he’s not in a great place.

Disregard the estrogen though and look at DHT. That’s more important than testosterone for various neural benefits (boost DHT makes your libido and strength expression go up more than testosterone as it’s a stronger androgen).

I don’t think anyone is disregarding propecia will lower DHT substantially.

Ignore the subjective effects reported and instead focus on the role DHT plays in everything from mood, to body composition, it’s ability to combat the negative effects of higher estrogen (DHT helps improve muscle density, creates a drier physique whereas estrogen causes water bloat and softer physique).

DHT’s role in physiological and psychological health can easily be looked up. Therefore, regardless of what someone “thinks” or “feels”, it does not change the fact that by dramatically reducing it, you’re not going to change the landscape for physical and psychological health.

You’ll hold more water. Find it more difficult to get to very lean condition etc.

Therefore, no matter what anyone thinks, how many good thoughts they have - there is nothing they can do to rewrite how these hormones work in the body and whether it’s estrogen or DHT, it’s not possible to argue that increasing one while reducing the other is going to have anything other than a negative effect if somebody went out and measured it in a quantitative way.

 

[rclark]

NOCEBO?

Do you mean placebo?

I'm having a hard time now trying to learn Hindu.

Jesus f*****g Christ guys, please don't BUTCHER THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

I saw that Peterson's daughter was even promoting a zero-carb diet and frankly, while I'll never be that restrictive, I always feel much better when I cut out things like bread, pasta, potatoes and other so common heavy carbs that almost seem unavoidable in our culture.

At one of the places where I eat near work, they regularly insist that I take some kind of carbs with my meal. It's like they need to shove it in your face and they can't understand that some people don't eat carbs. Every time: "are you sure you don't want fries or potatoes with your steak?! Why?!" So annoying.

Anyway, by reducing my carb intake dramatically, I feel more energetic, more focused, less bloated, tend to gain less weight and also put on more muscle in the gym, and I guess that's because of the extra protein. Would recommend, but the hardest is to always justify yourself to people while they lecture you about how bread is the healthiest thing ever and you should eat lots of it because... well, their parents told them that when they were little.

Many vegans can compete and even defeat religious fundamentalists when it comes to self righteousness.

 

[INT]

There was an old video where Jordan Peterson briefly says that veganism is a religious belief system that tends to grip people who are atheists, nihilistic, a bit lost in their lives.

It gives them back a sense of control in their lives and there is a whole culture that goes with this religion. Almost every time someone converts to that ideology, you can see them take the "whole package" (polyamory, anti-capitalism, etc.) with it and they almost always turn into radicals.

As the scientific and anecdotal evidence against veganism is piling up, they have to defend their faulty and unhealthy belief system more and more vehemently.

I dated a vegan girl for like a week. Looking back, she was insane. She even refused to kiss me after I ate meat, in the end, she decided that she could never be with someone who eats meat. Thank God.

A friend of mine is vegan and tried to get into bodybuilding. Because his calories sources were so calorie-dense, he just bloated and you can't tell if he actually built much actual muscle. Way to make your life harder, but as we've seen, it's a religion, so there's no way he's going to change his ways.

Yes a small minority of the vegans are crazy. Most of them are not.

There are a lot of health benefits to being vegan IF DONE PROPERLY.

I am not a vegan myself (yet) but I think it is a shame tha there is so much misinformation and hate regarding the diet and lifestyle.

 

[INT]

As my very competent family doctor used to answer this question:

"How do vegans do it?"

"They don't, they get sick."

The short answer is that humans are just not designed to live only on carbs, veggies and fruits.

"You're not doing it right!" is a cheap marketing trick that scammers will often use. Eating right, and by that I mean eating a high-protein diet, is not hard. I don't need to think about much, I just get my steak with extra chicken, cheese and some vegetables.

And that does the trick for me, better health, sharper mind and I build more muscle. No elaborate diet plan that I have to follow to a T so it's done "properly". Vegans usually need to get a life or more precisely, to get a religion and to get God, instead falling prey to ideologies that feed you lies and slowly kill you in the long run.

So much ignorance in one post, I will literally need to respond to this after work to rebute everything

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

Point proven @Afro_Vacancy .

I'm reluctant to get further involved in a scientific discussion, as in the past this can lead to a lot off butthurt, as well as internet links to anecdotal reports of particular movie stars and athletes claiming to be vegan at a particular point in time, which I consider irrelevant. @INT doesn't seem completely irrational though, so it may not lead there. I will simply list a few legitimate concerns with veganism, and I think I'm being very conservative in listing this.

Some concerns with veganism.

1) A lot of people have significant allergies and auto-immune responses to the plant sector. These are not fully mapped out nor are they fully understood. I gave the example of Jordan Peterson and his daughter, they seem to get a bad response to a lot of plants. There might not be a doctor out there who can tell you exactly which plants are doing this to them, so meat and greens works for him. This applies to a lot of people. A friend of mine form Australia was doing veganism for a while, she had to stop due to auto-immune reactions.

This is admittedly an unnatural criticism. We're not supposed to be allergic to everything, it's something else in the environment doing this to us. In the state of nature everybody would be fine eating more plants.

This further applies to feeding children. Tree nuts and peanuts are undoubtedly good sources of protein to feed your children. They're not perfect, but they're good. However, if a single child in your kid's school is allergic to tree nuts or peanuts, then you cannot include it in your kid's lunch box. This is a problem, as it is common sense that kids have higher relative protein needs than adults.

2) Work-related meals when travelling for business or social reasons. When you travel for your company or your university, you will go out to breakfast/lunch/dinner with others. The food is not the purpose of these meals, the networking is. Right now most American restaurants will cater to veganism, it's more widely accepted there, but if you're traveling in Europe or Southeast Asia you will have a harder time. You should eat what's available and not lecture everybody else on their food choices. You should not rule out the restaurant options favored by the most important in the group to suit your own needs. Networking and socializing has to the priority here.

It is also the case that when you are visiting family, or going to a wedding, etc, that you should not impose your dietary requirements on people. I regularly cook for people and I don't mind. But other people will mind as it can be annoying. Recently I organized a dinner party where one vegan was going to attend, and one person who can't handle spicy foods. The combination of those two factors actually made it very difficult for me to prepare me a meal plan. Other people would have had a harder time.

3) Related to point #1, the cluster of gluten intolerance (similar to point #1). Theoretically this should not be a problem as potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, quinoa, etc are excellent sources of starch that can replace gluten. In practice, particularly for restaurant eating, a lot of vegan options are gluten-heavy. This is obviously hard for people with coeliac's disease. A study from 2017 shows that a lot of non-coeliac's claiming to be allergic to gluten are actually allergic to fructans. The result is the same however, they need to avoid a lot grain sources that dominate the vegan food supply.

4) Vitamin B12 / Cyanobalamin issues. In our modern economy, fruits and vegetables are heavily sterilized (due to other reasons) and thus vegans cannot get vitamin B12 unless they consume small amounts of animal products or take supplements. The issue with the supplements is first and foremost that the dosages of B-vitamins are not worked out. For example if you look at this supplement here:
https://www.amazon.com/Bronson-Vitamin-Sustained-Release-Non-GMO/dp/B0006ZNFKQ/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1523021966&sr=1-2-spons&keywords=vitamin+B12&th=1
Which is the first link for vitamin B12 on Amazon, it gives you 42,000 % of your recommended intake of B12. A vegan might take this to replace what he's not getting from meat, but that's retarded. It's an excess amount and likely to lead to poisoning. Recent studies have shown that megadosing B-vitamins actually increases cancer rates.

Separately, for whatever reason the vitamin B12 given in supplements is often a synthetic B12 called Cyanobalamin. It's a different molecule that behaves slightly differently than the real B12 found in meat, that the human body prefers. A friend of mine actually thought that she was gluten-intolerant, she lectured a lot of people on the evils of bread. It turned out that she was actually allergic to cyanobalamin, which is added to wheat products in the United States as a fortifier.

Vegans can get around this problem by consuming modest amounts of animal products. They'll still be ethical.

5) The low quality of nut milks. A lot of vegans replace dairy in their diet (which is a major part of western cooking) with nut milks like soy milk, cashew milk, almond milk, etc. In the long-term this is great for civilization I think, but in the short term there are a lot of problems.

First of all, nearly all of them have added sugar, tons and tons of added sugar. You can get around that by finding the 1% of nut milks that don't have added sugar, which in supermarkets is usually the variety most likely to be sold out. But secondly, these nut milks have fortifiers to allow them to nutritionally compete with cow's milk.

For example, nearly all nut milks have added vitamin D, they can then claim that they have as much vitamin D in them as cow's milk. But they don't. The vitamin D in cow's milk is vitamin D3, which is healthy for humans. The vitamin D in nut milks which is added as a fortifier is vitamin D2, which is lower cost than vitamin D3, but toxic for humans. Studies have shown that vitamin D2 supplementation actually increases mortality rates relative to no supplementation. Similarly nut milks contain lesser added micronutrients such as vitamin A acetate. The vitamin A in cow's milk is not vitamin A acetate, it's retinol, one of the best forms of vitamin A. And so on for the other added micronutrients.

6) The low quality of soy in the United States (and elsewhere?). Soy is in principle a good source of protein and other nutrients for vegans and pretty much everybody actually. However, the quality is lowered in the USA due to the demands of mass industrial agriculture. Furthermore, a lot of the health benefits associated with soy are from studies of East Asian populations, but they eat a different kind of soy. The soy eaten in Southeast Asia is usually fermented soy, whereas soy sold in North America is not usually fermented. That changes the quality of the foods, and thus the insights learned from healthy soy-eating populations in south east Asia don't apply.

As with some of the other problems, this one is cultural and not intrinsic. If a westerner made the effort to eat more fermented rather than unfermented soy than he should get a lot more mileage.

7) Vegetarianism and veganism are linked to depression:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliceg...ed-to-depression-study-suggests/#4edc3ad71e89
This is a relatively new finding from the past few years, which we should be weary of over interpreting as it's an association which does not prove causality.

It may be due to unrelated psychosocial stress factors that this demographic is prone to, a deficit of omega 3 fatty acids that can be alleviated by modest consumption of fish, or an excess of carbs which will happen automatically on a western vegan diet. The latter can be alleviated by emphasizing nuts and seeds such as flax, hemp, chia, etc.

8) Too many carbohydrates may be bad for the brain and central nervous system (ties into point #7).
Our culture discusses fats and carbs purely in terms of what it does to body composition, but brain health is actually more important. There's more and more research linking excess carbohydrate consumption to brain problems, for example this article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769828/
Another recent study estimated that the ideal diet for the brain was one of around ~40% carbohydrates, compared to the western norm of 60% that is low. That will be difficult (but not impossible) to achieve with a vegan diet.
A vegan diet without careful planning will be a high-carb diet. It's possible for a vegan to consume more fats, but it will take careful planning.

9) Veganism may be impossible for many people with epilepsy (ties into point #7, 8).
One of the most effective treatments for epilepsy is a ketogenic diet. This reduces or eliminates seizures and does so in a manner separate from that of pharmaceuticals, which sometimes work and sometimes don't. If you want to be healthy on a ketogenic diet, you almost definitely need animal products.

10) All vegans go bald.
Just kidding lol. There is no research at this time that would allow one to ascertain which diet is best for hair.