Warnings issued over ‘serious’ risks with prostate drug
Researchers at Boston University Medical Center are sounding the alarm over “serious adverse side effects” they say have come to light about the prostate drug Avodart (or its generic version, dutsteride) — ones that they hope doctors tell their patients about immediately.
But this bad-news drug has been risky from the get-go, putting untold numbers of men — and believe it or not, unborn babies — in harm’s way for a long time now.
And that means for the millions of men prescribed Avodart, this warning may be coming a tad too late — like 16 years, which is how long ago it was first approved by the FDA.
For any man taking Avodart to treat an enlarged prostate (a.k.a. benign prostatic hyperplasia), Boston University researchers have some news you need to hear right away.
This drug can put you at a big risk for diabetes, send your cholesterol numbers soaring, and up your chances of developing “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” or NAFLD — a condition that can progress into liver failure.
And as if that weren’t enough, they’re also saying that Avodart can put your sex life in the rear-view mirror.
I know, you can’t turn on the television without hearing lots of scary warnings about drugs and how they can harm you all the time.
But this is different. These researchers are actually warning guys that Avodart will have “a negative impact” on their “overall health,” that it “reduces quality of life,” and that doctors need to be “fully aware” of these findings.
I hope they’ve braced themselves for the wrath of Big Pharma, which has tried to defame researchers for saying much less than that.
To arrive at those conclusions, they followed 460 men between the ages of 47 and 68 for nearly four years.
They gave Avodart to half of the group and gave a similar-acting drug called Flomax to the others. Now, Flomax is no walk in the park when it comes to having a long list of side effects that include back pain, difficulty urinating (isn’t that what this drug is supposed to treat?) and fainting. But the Avodart group were plagued with high blood sugar (including elevated hemoglobin A1c numbers), high lipid levels (which can up your risk of heart disease), and plummeting testosterone.
It’s enough to make your worries over that enlarged prostate shrink before your very eyes!
But the guys who take this drug, it seems, aren’t the only ones it can harm.
If a woman is exposed to the med during pregnancy, which can happen in a number of ways, there’s a very real chance that if she’s carrying a boy, his genitals will develop abnormally.
And since the drug can be absorbed through the skin, any woman of “childbearing potential” is warned by the drugmaker not to even touch an Avodart capsule. But seriously, how many women are reading the label for this med?
And it doesn’t end there.
The risk is so great that men who take Avodart are told not to donate blood for six months after stopping the med to prevent any possibility that a pregnant woman could be exposed!
Wow — hopefully doctors got that memo from Glaxo.
If you want a more natural approach to treating an enlarged prostate, HSI panel member Dr. Allan Spreen has a number of ideas.
Dr. Spreen advises adding the herb Pygeum africanum to your regimen, as well as supplementing your diet with zinc, essential fatty acids, and two or three amino acids. Cut down on sugar and refined flour as well, he says.
Yes, the old standby saw palmetto is on Dr. Spreen’s list, too. However, he says, it absolutely must be a “standardized berry extract,” or it’s not worth buying. The minimum effective dose is 320 milligrams a day, and it won’t kick in for two to three months.
He also says that you should first talk with your doctors about your enlarged prostate before starting up on saw palmetto.
But whatever you do, don’t let your doctor talk you into an Rx for Avodart!
“Popular prostate drug linked to serious side effects” Boston University Medical Center, June 22, 2017, ScienceDaily, sciencedaily.com
