I'm currently doing research into 5-alpha reductase inhibitors and their effects on the human body. From what I understand the most mainstream theory is that drugs like finasteride and dutasteride cause depression in subjects because they deprive the brain of neurosteroids that require the 5-alpha reductase enzymes as the substrate.
My question is, why are the negative side-effects associated with 5-AR inhibitors, such as depression, brain fog etc, not constantly present in women? Do their bodies produce these neurosteroids differently or do they just not require them?
Also why in most of the studies on rats are such high doses of finasteride/dutasteride used? Doses such as 40mg of dutasteride per KG in rats are used whereas humans aren't supposed to go over 0.5mg a day. Surely the negative side-effects shown in these studies should be thrown out the window because no human would ever take 80x the recommended dose of a drug and not expect negative side effects?
My question is, why are the negative side-effects associated with 5-AR inhibitors, such as depression, brain fog etc, not constantly present in women? Do their bodies produce these neurosteroids differently or do they just not require them?
Also why in most of the studies on rats are such high doses of finasteride/dutasteride used? Doses such as 40mg of dutasteride per KG in rats are used whereas humans aren't supposed to go over 0.5mg a day. Surely the negative side-effects shown in these studies should be thrown out the window because no human would ever take 80x the recommended dose of a drug and not expect negative side effects?
