London, July 13 (ANI): Men worried about losing their hair and thinking of using a baldness drug that was reportedly tried by Wayne Rooney should reconsider it.
Scientists have claimed that the hair-loss medication, Propecia, reportedly used by the footballer, may cause prolonged and possibly irreversible impotence, the Daily Mail reported.
The recent findings come after one patient bravely stepped forward to reveal to Good Morning America that the drug left him with no sex drive and even shrank his genitals.
Kevin Malley, 30, was prescribed with the drug after he worried he could be losing his hair. He said he only planned to take the pill for a year.
However, just five months after he started taking it in May 2011 he found he was completely impotent and his testes also became smaller.
Worried Malley consulted his doctor and was told the symptoms would disappear after he stopped taking the drug. But he says a year on and nothing has changed.
Dr Michael Irwig from the University of Washington may not be surprised with the news.
He recently published a study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, which found the ingredient finasteride, which is found in Propecia, could cause persistent sexual dysfunction, including low sexual desire, erectile dysfunction and problems with orgasms.
The male pattern baldness drug is manufactured by Merck and was approved by the FDA in 1997.
It was reported that Rooney started taking the medication in 2009 after he became sick of other footballer's jibes about his receding hairline. He has since had a hair transplant.
Dr Irwig first became aware of the problems caused by finasteride several years ago when he encountered several men who reported they had developed sexual dysfunction while taking the medication.
Dr Irwig then noticed that men had reported sexual dysfunction for months even after they stopped taking the medication.
"I came across a website called propeciahelp.com with more than 1,400 registered users - many young healthy men who developed the same sexual side effects from finasteride - and I discovered that nobody had published a series looking at these men - who they are, how long the sexual side effects lasted, what types," he said.
Dr Irwig's study included results from interviews with 71 men aged 21 to 46 years old to assess how long they took finasteride, the type and duration of sexual side effects and their sexual frequency before and after the medication.
Dr Irwig discovered that 94 per cent developed low libido, 92 per cent developed erectile dysfunction and decreased arousal, and 69 per cent developed problems with orgasm.
On average, the men used finasteride for approximately 28 months but experienced persistent sexual side effects for an average of 40 months, from the time they ceased taking the medication to the time of the interview.
Dr Irwig also found that the average number of sexual episodes per month dropped after finasteride use.
Malley is facing the same experience now.
He told Good Morning America: "I kept expecting the side effects to go away, but they did not, they only got worse."
Dr Irwig said roughly 5 per cent of men who take medicine will experience sexual dysfunction, and of those "it's hard to tell how many will experience persistent symptoms".
So he pointed out it is crucial that physicians treating male pattern hair loss discuss the possibility of persistent sexual side effects associated with finasteride with their patients. (ANI)
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