LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Curing PMS with Hair Loss Pills” by David Lorell


Listen Later

Over the last two years or so, my girlfriend identified her cycle as having a unusually strong and very predictable effect on her mood/affect. We tried a bunch of interventions (food, sleep, socializing, supplements, reading the sequences, …) and while some seemed to help a bit, none worked reliably. Then, suddenly, something kind of crazy actually worked: Hair loss pills.

The Menstrual Cycle

Quick review: The womenfolk among us go through a cycle of varying hormone levels over the course of about a month. The first two weeks are called the “Follicular Phase”, and the last two weeks are called the “Luteal Phase.” The first week (usually less) is the “period” (“menstrual phase”, “menses”) where the body sloughs off the endometrial lining in the uterus, no longer of use to the unimpregnated womb, and ejects it in an irregular fountain of blood and gore. After that is a [...]

---

Outline:

(00:35) The Menstrual Cycle

(02:28) The Bad Guy: Progesterone Allopregnanolone

(05:19) Hair Loss Pills

(07:17) Finasteride

(09:23) Dutasteride

(10:55) Results So Far

(12:39) Come ON ALREADY

(13:44) iM nOt A dOcToR

The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

July 2nd, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mkGxXEmcAGowmMjHC/curing-pms-with-hair-loss-pills

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,375 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,424 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

8,934 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,153 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

92 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Your Undivided Attention

1,594 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,907 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

90 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

75 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,472 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,075 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

539 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

130 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

95 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

504 Listeners