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Previous studies have shown that dutasteride, a steroid 5α-reductase inhibitor used to treat patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), induced insulin resistance and increased blood glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin levels. In this study, researchers sought to determine whether either of the 5α-reductase inhibitors (dutasteride or finasteride) confers excess risk for type 2 diabetes compared with tamsulosin (an α-blocker also used to manage BPH but not known to cause insulin resistance). Two population-based cohorts from the U.K. and Taiwan were evaluated.
U.K. participants were 55,000 men (mean age, 70) who received ≥2 prescriptions for dutasteride, finasteride, or tamsulosin. After a mean 5.2-year follow-up, 2100 men had develope…