Does Finasteride or Propecia Improve Heart Health?

So this is an interesting study that took place in 2019. This was entitled Anti-Androgenic Therapy with Finasteride In Patients With Chronic Heart Failure - A Retrospective Propensity Score Based Analysis* by Dr. Badder Kattih, Lukas Simon Elling, Christel Weiss, Marieke Bea, Carolin Zwadlo, Udo Bavendiek, Johann Bauersachs, and Joerg Heineke, written in Scientific Reports. 

So, here's the premise of this study. Essentially, men and being a male is considered a risk factor for heart and heart disease. One of the issues is that DHT and testosterone can increase the size of the heart and lead to cardiac hypertrophy, which can lead to heart failure. And if you think of these bodybuilders who die early, they're taking super active amounts of testosterone therefore, they're getting more DHT. They get these thickened cardiac walls, leading to an increase in their mortality.

Unfortunately, some of these bodybuilders are dying early in their forties and thirties from heart failure. So the idea is if you block this DHT with Finasteride, will it improve someone's cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure? And they actually found that it does improve the actual thickness of their heart. This can happen to both men and women. The theory of why men have heart diseases is because of testosterone. But women with heart disease happens typically after menopause. They don't get the cardioprotective effect of the estrogens and they're getting testosterone. These can all cause problems with that. Increasing Their cardiac mortality. Finasteride, itself, was just as strong as some other medications like blood pressure medications, ACE inhibitors, and diuretics. So the thought is an extra benefit of Finasteride, aside from keeping your hair or helping prevent hair loss. Aside from shrinking your prostate, it might have some cardioprotective elements to it. And several studies demonstrate that.

*Kattih B, Elling LS, Weiss C, et al. Anti-androgenic therapy with finasteride in patients with chronic heart failure - a retrospective propensity score based analysis. Sci Rep. 2019;9(1):10139. Published 2019 Jul 12. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-46640-8