The internet is a great resource, but with the deluge of conflicting information, it's hard to know what's credible and what isn't. One way to help sort it is to separate information based on (1)large numbers of people in well-designed studies published in peer-reviewed journals from (2)anecdotal evidence (testimonies of individuals). Why are anecdotes suspect? Because people who write in often have had a particularly bad experience, or sometimes a particularly good experience - the norm is under-represented in such accounts. (In research, we avoid this by randomization.) Anecdotes are useful for qualitative information, but not quantitative information. In other words, you can't use it to help make predictions of what will happen to you.
Although anecdotes may lead to bad decisions, we are programmed to pay attention to them. Our brains fire up more when a live person tells us something than when we read a statistic in a stuffy book. This is the source of a cognitive error that most of us make - in Cognitive Science it is called the
availability heuristic.* The only way to stop us making such errors is to override them. Just ask oneself, "how do I know if this is true?"
Yes, I took finasteride for almost a year before my treatment with no ill effects. My hair got thicker, and I peed better.
Below are the results of a recent study on saw palmetto, the major active ingredient in the supplement your husband is taking. As you can see, it found, based on a randomized, controlled, double-blind trial in 369 men (this is the highest level of evidence), that "Saw palmetto extract does not affect serum prostate specific antigen more than placebo, even at relatively high doses."
The Effect of Increasing Doses of Saw Palmetto Fruit Extract on Serum Prostate Specific Antigen: Analysis of the CAMUS Randomized TrialOn the other hand, finasteride has been found in several major studies to have high efficacy with a low side-effect profile. And it prevents low grade prostate cancer.
- Allen
* If bad decision-making due to cognitive errors is a subject that interests you, I would suggest reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman.