If High Estrogen Leads To Hair Loss, Why Aren't Obese Men Disproportionately Thinning?

[Aaron]

We all know that higher body fat stores lead to higher aromatization and therefore more estrogen, and many here believe that estrogen balance plays a key role in hair loss. But I've noticed that very fat men, if anything, seem to have some extra protection from hair loss/balding. What are your theories on this?

 

[JohnA]

I anecdotally agree that my 20-40 year old fat friends often have better hair than my 20-40 year old "in shape" friends.

Here's my overarching theory: Most things we talk about are either causes or symptoms of impaired cellular metabolism (which every modern human has to some small or large extent). Obesity may increase estrogen dominance, but improve other aspects of cellular metabolism.

Estrogen dominance is just one of many things that impair cellular metabolism. Others are impaired thyroid function, diluted electrolyte fluid balances, and sending wintertime/hibernation signals to your body (such as insufficient calorie intake, insufficient bright light/red light, low body and skin temperatures, and excess PUFAs).

I'd argue that almost every "disease" not caused by contagious viruses or genetic defects is caused somewhat by impaired cellular metabolism. I'd also argue that one's vulnerability to contagious viruses and genetic defects increases as cellular metabolism worsens. But not all people get the same symptoms. Ray Peat, Hans Selye, and Broda Barnes all have commented on how stress / impaired metabolism first affect each person's unique weakest link. For some, that's libido. For others, hair loss. For others, weight gain.

Back to your particular question: I believe obesity is caused by impaired cellular metabolism and that becoming obese will accelerate other impaired metabolism symptoms such as cardiovascular disease. But becoming obese does improve your metabolism in some ways. Most notably, 1) overall absolute metabolic rate is increased and 2) it becomes easier to maintain normal body temperatures due to the increased insulation and increased mass/surface area ratio. These changes improve some symptoms, including hair loss.

Lots of commenters on Matt Stone's old site claimed improved energy, libido, hair growth, and skin quality while becoming obese following his programs... Becoming obese is obviously bad for a lot of reasons (Western society generally looks down on obese people, increased cardiovascular risk, no one has found a consistent way to lose fat without re-wrecking metabolism, etc.), but it does seem to provide some protection against further pre-mature baldness. Of course, you could have the worst of both worlds and have a genetic predisposition for impaired cellular metabolism to show up as both hair loss and weight gain, but your rate of hair loss will likely at least decelerate as obesity increases your body temps and metabolic rate.

 

[mujuro]

Even on My 600lb Life, many of the males have solid heads of hair. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his contemporaries - Franco Columbu, Lou Ferrigno, Serge Nubret, the blonde guy with huge quads whose name I forget - are rumored to have lived on a diet of SFA, with plenty of raw milk and steak. Note their hair, even with the anabolics they used. A look back on my history, I believe my problems all began when I bought into the fish oil mania and started supplementing large doses. This was some 6 or 7 years ago. I remember vividly, that very year, one day when I was getting ready for work it struck me that one side of my hairline was thinner than the other. It’s been a battle ever since.

Isn’t there a kind of “T3 paradox” in obese people where they have higher relative thyroid hormone levels than thinner people?

 

[benaoao]

a few anecdotes don't mean too much... most of America is overweight AND balding.

Also the life in the 60s was dramatically different compared to today, food and drugs obviously, time spent outside / not in front of screens etc.

 

[lvysaur]

because estrogen has little to do with hair loss.

 

[xetawaves]

I'm a waiter and I see tons of overweight guys come in that are balding. The theory that estrogen causes hair loss confuses me because mtf trans women regrow all of their hair once they tank their androgens and flood their body with estrogen.

 

[Curiousman]

Even on My 600lb Life, many of the males have solid heads of hair. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his contemporaries - Franco Columbu, Lou Ferrigno, Serge Nubret, the blonde guy with huge quads whose name I forget - are rumored to have lived on a diet of SFA, with plenty of raw milk and steak. Note their hair, even with the anabolics they used. A look back on my history, I believe my problems all began when I bought into the fish oil mania and started supplementing large doses. This was some 6 or 7 years ago. I remember vividly, that very year, one day when I was getting ready for work it struck me that one side of my hairline was thinner than the other. It’s been a battle ever since.

Isn’t there a kind of “T3 paradox” in obese people where they have higher relative thyroid hormone levels than thinner people?

It's Tom Platz

 

[benaoao]

They were mostly using nandrolone and dianabol, both weak androgens, their food was local seasonal and mostly logically-grown, plenty of sunlight, no radiations, etc.

People who look up to “golden era” bodybuilders have this Blue Zone way of perceiving things, meaning Diet is about a tenth of their pyramid but is somehow the most important factor for their longevity/health. It’s not.

 

[Aaron]

I anecdotally agree that my 20-40 year old fat friends often have better hair than my 20-40 year old "in shape" friends.

Here's my overarching theory: Most things we talk about are either causes or symptoms of impaired cellular metabolism (which every modern human has to some small or large extent). Obesity may increase estrogen dominance, but improve other aspects of cellular metabolism.

Estrogen dominance is just one of many things that impair cellular metabolism. Others are impaired thyroid function, diluted electrolyte fluid balances, and sending wintertime/hibernation signals to your body (such as insufficient calorie intake, insufficient bright light/red light, low body and skin temperatures, and excess PUFAs).

I'd argue that almost every "disease" not caused by contagious viruses or genetic defects is caused somewhat by impaired cellular metabolism. I'd also argue that one's vulnerability to contagious viruses and genetic defects increases as cellular metabolism worsens. But not all people get the same symptoms. Ray Peat, Hans Selye, and Broda Barnes all have commented on how stress / impaired metabolism first affect each person's unique weakest link. For some, that's libido. For others, hair loss. For others, weight gain.

Back to your particular question: I believe obesity is caused by impaired cellular metabolism and that becoming obese will accelerate other impaired metabolism symptoms such as cardiovascular disease. But becoming obese does improve your metabolism in some ways. Most notably, 1) overall absolute metabolic rate is increased and 2) it becomes easier to maintain normal body temperatures due to the increased insulation and increased mass/surface area ratio. These changes improve some symptoms, including hair loss.

Lots of commenters on Matt Stone's old site claimed improved energy, libido, hair growth, and skin quality while becoming obese following his programs... Becoming obese is obviously bad for a lot of reasons (Western society generally looks down on obese people, increased cardiovascular risk, no one has found a consistent way to lose fat without re-wrecking metabolism, etc.), but it does seem to provide some protection against further pre-mature baldness. Of course, you could have the worst of both worlds and have a genetic predisposition for impaired cellular metabolism to show up as both hair loss and weight gain, but your rate of hair loss will likely at least decelerate as obesity increases your body temps and metabolic rate.

Thanks for your input. This seems spot on, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who's observed that unhealthy obese people tending to have thicker heads of hair than average people, and their hairlines are clearly not suffering deleterious effects from high levels of estrogen. I looked into Matt Stone and he's pretty unscientific. Although he appears to have retained his good spirits, he became quite puffy and estrogenic and, in fact, balding by the end of his videos (2012), so clearly he managed to take a few wrong turns despite his emphasis on maintaining high metabolism and apparently emulating Ray Peat in a layman type of way. By the way, have I just stumbled into this microcosm where everyone knows who Matt Stone, Jack Kruse, etc are, despite their being quite low-profile? Most of them seem like absolute quacks and have an army of middle-aged women and random metabolically challenged folks following them and accepting their word as gospel. I'd never heard of any of them until I stumbled on this forum via Google searches about estrogen. Ray Peat certainly seems to adhere to science and logic more than the rest and he is obscenely knowledgeable rather than just verbose and opinionated.

I'm in the middle of a cut for summer and it's going well, but one of my main priorities in life is maintaining my NW0.5 which I worked so hard to gain. I have quite a lot of muscle mass (6'5" 230 12-14%) which I'm sure is protective, but any ideas on how to maintain or even improve hair while on a 500-700 kcal deficit? I know long fasts will decimate the hair so I won't be doing that again. I'm fairly new to this forum's concepts and they go deep. I appreciate it.

a few anecdotes don't mean too much... most of America is overweight AND balding.

Also the life in the 60s was dramatically different compared to today, food and drugs obviously, time spent outside / not in front of screens etc.

But what I've observed is that there seems to be an inverse relationship in amount of hair thinning when increasing from "average overweight American" to "obese American." Average Americans are fat and balding, yes, but one could hypothesize that thinner Americans may have better heads of hair than "average" because they tend to care for themselves in additional ways. If the level of self-care were the same and you were to compare the two groups, still at the same weights/calorie intakes, I believe there would be a positive correlation between weight and thickness of hair.

Anyway, I was mostly trying to point out contrary evidence for the folks who believe estrogen is a primary culprit in hair loss (which many here believe). There are definitely a lot of factors and many who believe otherwise. It's quite obvious to me that estrogen can have both negative and positive effects on hair, and as JohnA put it, differences in cellular metabolism and body temperatures may more than compensate for the negative effects of estrogen on hair, which may be overstated in the first place.

because estrogen has little to do with hair loss.

I'm a waiter and I see tons of overweight guys come in that are balding. The theory that estrogen causes hair loss confuses me because mtf trans women regrow all of their hair once they tank their androgens and flood their body with estrogen.

I wasn't saying that overweight men are protected from hair loss itself, but rather than increasing levels of body fat do not actually seem to cause additional hair loss, and if anything it's the opposite, because the morbidly obese do not experience more hair loss than the average person, and they tend to eat the same awful or awful-er diet, just in larger amounts. I can definitely understand the argument that estrogen leads to hair loss. In normal men, DHT and stress hormones increase in response to estrogen, while in FTM women, they experience greater net benefit from estrogen because their bodies flourish with comparably much higher levels and they lack the androgenic homeostatic response.

It is a common theme for members of this forum to proclaim that estrogen is the enemy when it comes to everything under the sun, including hair loss (I was just reading a thread where multiple members repeatedly hammered that "estrogen causes hair loss") but obviously it is much more complex. Quite frankly I would love to believe that; I enjoy the feeling of androgens and enjoy keeping my estrogen low, but I'm unconvinced that keeping estrogen low will independently benefit the hair.

Even on My 600lb Life, many of the males have solid heads of hair. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his contemporaries - Franco Columbu, Lou Ferrigno, Serge Nubret, the blonde guy with huge quads whose name I forget - are rumored to have lived on a diet of SFA, with plenty of raw milk and steak. Note their hair, even with the anabolics they used. A look back on my history, I believe my problems all began when I bought into the fish oil mania and started supplementing large doses. This was some 6 or 7 years ago. I remember vividly, that very year, one day when I was getting ready for work it struck me that one side of my hairline was thinner than the other. It’s been a battle ever since.

Isn’t there a kind of “T3 paradox” in obese people where they have higher relative thyroid hormone levels than thinner people?

It became an issue for me during a period when I was consuming 3-8g of fish oil per day in addition to tons of nuts and nut butters, followed by multi-day fasts, lots of green tea, phytoestrogens, goitrogens, seratonergens, whole grains, cruciferous vegetables (RIP thyroid), adaptogenic herbs, yogurt with lots of lactic acid, avoidance of meat, etc. The scientific research I was following led me to believe these things would boost my overall health immensely and benefit my hairline in the same way. Makes me sick to recall the lackadaisical, foggy mental state I lived with.

Obese people do apparently have higher T3. Interesting.

 

[benaoao]

I've been thinking of this "estrogen causes hair loss / DHT is our lord and savior" mindset that seems to pop up sometimes in here.

Now I'll repost this and I suggest you focus hard because it's worth it IMO: Anticancer Testosterone Metabolite 3β-Adiol (July 2012) Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients

estrogen is high: standard cellular cascade leading to hypothyroid, prolactin and such, plus high DHT. Excess DHT (or rather, its imbalance) leads to hair follicle atrophy.

now what happens in morbidly obese people? Perhaps their SHBG is so low / aromatase activity is so high that they don't even have androgens left. So their hormonal status isn't far from the transgenders. In that regard, it would make sense that their hair wouldn't get as screwed as the less heavy males, or even the wannabe healthy avg Joes who do stupid dietary restrictions and train too hard and make sure to live an overactive (and connected) life 24/7.

If you stalk hair loss forums they seem to be confident that a boatload of e2 on the scalp will displace androgenic hormones and be protective. This forum is about progesterone because it's more Peatarian - imo the difference isn't significant for males and hair loss.

 

[JohnA]

I looked into Matt Stone and he's pretty unscientific. Although he appears to have retained his good spirits, he became quite puffy and estrogenic and, in fact, balding by the end of his videos (2012), so clearly he managed to take a few wrong turns despite his emphasis on maintaining high metabolism and apparently emulating Ray Peat in a layman type of way. By the way, have I just stumbled into this microcosm where everyone knows who Matt Stone, Jack Kruse, etc are, despite their being quite low-profile? Most of them seem like absolute quacks and have an army of middle-aged women and random metabolically challenged folks following them and accepting their word as gospel. I'd never heard of any of them until I stumbled on this forum via Google searches about estrogen. Ray Peat certainly seems to adhere to science and logic more than the rest and he is obscenely knowledgeable rather than just verbose and opinionated.

Matt Stone is incredibly flawed as a diet guru, but I think in context he had a lot of good ideas. He's decently well known because he has a huge back catalog of blog posts and accessible e-books that still sell pretty well on Amazon.

If I could suggest a starter pack for getting into Ray Peat's ideas, I'd recommend:

1. Kate Deering - How to Heal Your Metabolism
2. Danny Roddy - Organizing the Panic (it's not as famous as his Hair Like a Fox, but I agree with Roddy that "Organizing" is his better work)
3. Matt Stone - Eat for Heat (Stone thinks Diet Recovery 2 is his best work, but I think the caloric density framework in Eat for Heat is Stone's most enduring contribution)
4. Ray Peat - Generative Energy

Spend a week or two digesting those works, and you'll be better able to understand Ray Peat's scientific articles and this forum's various discussions.

 

[fradon]

We all know that higher body fat stores lead to higher aromatization and therefore more estrogen, and many here believe that estrogen balance plays a key role in hair loss. But I've noticed that very fat men, if anything, seem to have some extra protection from hair loss/balding. What are your theories on this?

i thought it was the other way around ESTROGEN HELPS HAIR RETENTION...otherwise women would be bald My mother is losing her hair but she also has low estrogen do to hysterectomy and menopause.

infact what i was reading was that phytoestrgens in soy can help with hair retention but soy has some bad side effects for mail.s

 

[tallglass13]

@benaoao
..you're definitely on to something... But as I was at Trader Joe's this evening, a young man in front of me who was very lean, had bald head, and I was wondering how in the heck this guy went bald... if he just had hair he would look like any other lean person with hair... But the top of his head was bulbous... Some inflammation and Scar Tissue must have formed to have this look...

 

[Aleeri]

I've been thinking of this "estrogen causes hair loss / DHT is our lord and savior" mindset that seems to pop up sometimes in here.

Now I'll repost this and I suggest you focus hard because it's worth it IMO: Anticancer Testosterone Metabolite 3β-Adiol (July 2012) Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients

estrogen is high: standard cellular cascade leading to hypothyroid, prolactin and such, plus high DHT. Excess DHT (or rather, its imbalance) leads to hair follicle atrophy.

now what happens in morbidly obese people? Perhaps their SHBG is so low / aromatase activity is so high that they don't even have androgens left. So their hormonal status isn't far from the transgenders. In that regard, it would make sense that their hair wouldn't get as screwed as the less heavy males, or even the wannabe healthy avg Joes who do stupid dietary restrictions and train too hard and make sure to live an overactive (and connected) life 24/7.

If you stalk hair loss forums they seem to be confident that a boatload of e2 on the scalp will displace androgenic hormones and be protective. This forum is about progesterone because it's more Peatarian - imo the difference isn't significant for males and hair loss.

This is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. Personally I had low T because of too high SHBG but I also had issues with estrogen. I corrected it all (peating) and my hormone profile now looks pretty epic, except my metabolism is still low and not corrected and so is temp/pulse. I've been balding for 6 years (only receding hair line though but a lot) and my personal experience from being in almost every type of hormone imbalance at some point is that metabolism seems to be the key here.

When I diet to lose body fat my hair becomes a lot worse. I am now at the point where I have to pick between being ripped (I run a fitness company) and having hair on my head lol.

 

[xetawaves]

This is very interesting and makes a lot of sense. Personally I had low T because of too high SHBG but I also had issues with estrogen. I corrected it all (peating) and my hormone profile now looks pretty epic, except my metabolism is still low and not corrected and so is temp/pulse. I've been balding for 6 years (only receding hair line though but a lot) and my personal experience from being in almost every type of hormone imbalance at some point is that metabolism seems to be the key here.

When I diet to lose body fat my hair becomes a lot worse. I am now at the point where I have to pick between being ripped (I run a fitness company) and having hair on my head lol.

Metabolism is the key. When I diet to burn fat, my hair gets worse fast. When you eat an excess of calories to gain weight, does your hair get thicker?

 

[Aleeri]

Metabolism is the key. When I diet to burn fat, my hair gets worse fast. When you eat an excess of calories to gain weight, does your hair get thicker?

My hair quality became a lot better when switching to Peat, but it did not regrow hair. When I was bulking it did not really improve any growth either, just improved quality such as texture and shinier.

I am still trying to figure out how to get temps and heart rate up, not seeing much progress but also hard when you're on a deficit.

 

[Pdohlen]

Ray Peat has in some articles, if I do not recall wrong, mentioned the free testosteron as more signinficant than absolute testosteron levels. And that too high levels of free testosteron could be problematic.

So is it possible:

low testosteron and low estrogen = fat and bald
High testosteron and low estrogen = fit/ripped and bald
Low Testosteron and high estrogen = fat with great hair
High testosteron and high estrogen = fit/ripped and great hair

 

[BigChad]

Ray Peat has in some articles, if I do not recall wrong, mentioned the free testosteron as more signinficant than absolute testosteron levels. And that too high levels of free testosteron could be problematic.

So is it possible:

low testosteron and low estrogen = fat and bald
High testosteron and low estrogen = fit/ripped and bald
Low Testosteron and high estrogen = fat with great hair
High testosteron and high estrogen = fit/ripped and great hair

the reason peat and most, from what i know, believe testosterone to be bad is because it can convert to estrogen and supplementing testosterone without an aromatase inhibitor increases your estrogen as well.
A high testosterone, low estrogen scenario would be fit/ripped with great hair.
A high testosterone high estrogen scenario could easily describe an obese person or someone who is fit/ripped but bald and has gyno.
testosterone promotes hair growth it is only the conversion to estrogen/prolactin that causes the hair loss

 

[lampofred]

Obese people are more likely to be running on sugar as opposed to fat. It is a drop in blood sugar that releases adrenal hormones and causes balding.

 

[BigChad]

Obese people are more likely to be running on sugar as opposed to fat. It is a drop in blood sugar that releases adrenal hormones and causes balding.

so higher caloric intake, if mostly from fat/protein would still cause balding, and lower caloric intake, if mostly fat/protein with minimal carb would also cause balding?