Omega3s, Estrogen, What Causes Hair Loss? My Personal Story

lvysaur

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I was taking krill oil supplements (rich in EPA and DHA, but with naturally occurring antioxidants) and flax oil (rich in ALA, has some linoleic acid) for years before I started noticing hair loss.

I was taking flax oil on and off, irregularly for 2 years, then stopped that and took krill oil regularly for 1.5 years.

I'm a 22 year old male, father not bald, mother's father not bald, half of my mother's brothers went bald in their late 30s/40s, other half kept their hair. I'm certain this is related to my environment.

Could taking these supplements cause hair loss? If so, how?

I can imagine how Omega6s would be involved in hair loss (arachidonic acid is a necessary precursor for ProstaglandinD2, which causes hair loss when applied externally, and is elevated in bald scalps), but how would omega3s cause this?

Perhaps I'm looking at it the wrong way, and PGD2 shouldn't normally end up in the scalp in a healthy individual in the first place?

The following paragraphs have NSFW text:

I also masturbated A LOT (often 3+ times a day) over the last few years. This increases prolactin, which I've read is associated with hair loss.

The other thing is, over the last few years, my sexuality has become very "feminine". By that, I mean that I've had fantasies about women acting on me, rather than the other way around: touching me, spanking me, me being in vulnerable positions, etc. TMI, I know, but I feel it's relevant, since I never had such fantasies as a teenager.

When I'm actually able to have sexual fantasies about me dominating the woman, I need hypersexual stimulation. I tend to look at pictures/videos of women with very sexual figures, tiny waists, huge hips, big round butts, thick lips, extreme bondage, etc. Again, this wasn't always the case, I used to masturbate to pictures of relatively cute, skinny girls in bikinis and halter tops back when I was 17; I never even cared for a woman's butt/hips.

Anyway, could this change be due to increased estrogen? Perhaps it's not increased estrogen, but low SHBG, which would inactivate some estrogen? I've skimmed a lot of websites saying that sex drive and estrogen are correlated in males; I think Peat himself may have mentioned somewhere that high estrogen can cause insatiable sexual interest in men. It would explain my high, but submissive, sex drive.

I'm getting a little politically incorrect here, but as far as stereotypes and general impressions go, it could also explain gay men having high sex drives, while being rather submissive (I'm not certain just how true the former is, but I've read accounts from many gay men that dominant "tops" are far more rare than submissive "bottoms").

I've also read that black men have more estrogen than white men, and Asian men have higher testosterone (but lower 5 alpha reductase, thus less prostate cancer, hair loss, and facial hair) than white men. If estrogen levels were lower in Asian men, wouldn't that explain the stereotype of Asian men having less interest in sex, and the preferences of black men for women with very sexual features (big butts, hips, lips, etc)? I realize I may sound very racist and crude here, and I really don't mean to offend anyone, but from my personal observations, and I've known many people of many different races, these generalizations seem somewhat true.

A few things I've been doing lately seem to be helping. Aside from the central guidelines of avoiding all PUFA, and getting sugar/fruit, I've also started drinking coffee, eating shellfish (mussels/oysters), and eating grass-fed liver.

What I've noticed: after eating a lot of mussels, or a few oysters, I feel like masturbating, but without the submissive hangups.

After consuming oysters, liver (no coffee), and doing a resistance workout one day, I awoke the next morning to find at least 5 new hairs growing on a previously bald spot of my temple. Additionally, I saw literally no hair shedding in the shower, for the next few days.

The coffee has been keeping me energized. I also saw the following study; it found that coffee decreased estrogen in white women, but increased it in Asian and black women.

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jan2012/nichd-26.htm

I'm not a woman, and I'm neither white, black, or Asian, but I've been having almost none of my "submissive" fantasies lately, and I've mostly gone back to looking at pictures of normally proportioned girls, with normally sized butts, normal looking faces, devoid of excessively degrading acts and dungeon-esque props. (I'm Indian for the record, which genetically/morphologically seems a lot closer to white/mideastern/"Caucasian" than anything else, but I don't know how much that counts for when talking about coffee and estrogen)

I realize this post became unreasonably long, so I apologize. Here's a tl;dr summary of the relevant questions contained in this post.

1. Can omega3s worsen hair loss, and how?

2. What is the significance of ingesting omega3 with an antioxidant, like krill oil, as opposed to one without, like fish oil?

3. How would ingesting parent omega3 (alpha linolenic acid) have a different effect on the body from ingesting omega3 derivatives (EPA and DHA)?

4. Can high estrogen cause an increase in sex drive, in males?

5. Can high estrogen cause increased thoughts of sexual submissiveness or homosexuality, in males?

6. Can high estrogen cause hair loss?

7. Can eating liver help hair loss in any significant way, and how?
[/list]

Feel free to answer, but also to discuss, add your own experience, whatever. Thanks a lot.
 
J

j.

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

My hair shedding was gone 6 months after strict PUFA avoidance. I ate eggs daily, but no vegetable oils or margarine and chicken very rarely.
 
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lvysaur

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

Thanks, j. I've been avoiding PUFA for maybe two weeks now, at best.

Are you male or female, btw? Somewhat important regarding hair loss.
 

SaltGirl

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

My experience with estrogen that the higher it is the more I want to rip someone's head off. Every time my aggression was off the chart blood tests would reveal my estrogen was sky high. I'd be very emotional, but mostly on the negative depression(hate, anger, depression). In my opinion, I think this submissiveness is more serotonin related(a form of learned helplessness).

On another note, I used to own a lot of gerbils and the females incredibly are territorial and vicious. You could have 3 males in a cage and no problem, hell they would just lie altogether and have it comfy. With females, however, having two in a cage was difficult because if anything changed slightly they'd be tearing at each other's throats.
 

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

SaltGirl said:
My experience with estrogen that the higher it is the more I want to rip someone's head off. Every time my aggression was off the chart blood tests would reveal my estrogen was sky high. I'd be very emotional, but mostly on the negative depression(hate, anger, depression). In my opinion, I think this submissiveness is more serotonin related(a form of learned helplessness).

On another note, I used to own a lot of gerbils and the females incredibly are territorial and vicious. You could have 3 males in a cage and no problem, hell they would just lie altogether and have it comfy. With females, however, having two in a cage was difficult because if anything changed slightly they'd be tearing at each other's throats.
Sounds like a day at the office! :lol:
 

Spokey

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

They let you keep gerbils at work? :eek: :)
 

charlie

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

:rolling
 

Blossom

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

We are the gerbils! There are very few males in our cage.!!!
 
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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

lvysaur said:
Could taking these supplements cause hair loss? If so, how?

You should check out Danny Roddy's "hair like a fox" e-book. His theory is that hair follicles are very sensitive to problems with energy production, and can act as a sort of "canary in the coal mine" for metabolic problems.

I normally feed my elderly dog a food with only 1.6% PUFA. The store stopped carrying this, so I had to switch him to a 3.1% PUFA dog food, and he started to lose hair all over his body- going about 50% bald within 6 months. I switched him back to the low PUFA food and his hair grew back in about a month. I don't know for sure if this was caused by the PUFA, but I suspect nearly all of the PUFA in dry dog food is already rancid.

lvysaur said:
I also masturbated A LOT (often 3+ times a day) over the last few years. This increases prolactin, which I've read is associated with hair loss.

I don't know if hair loss is involved here, but perhaps should try quitting this for a while to see what happens. Many men seem to get major improvements in confidence, energy levels, focus, motivation, and overall mental health.
 

Kray

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

Blossom said:
SaltGirl said:
My experience with estrogen that the higher it is the more I want to rip someone's head off. Every time my aggression was off the chart blood tests would reveal my estrogen was sky high. I'd be very emotional, but mostly on the negative depression(hate, anger, depression). In my opinion, I think this submissiveness is more serotonin related(a form of learned helplessness).

On another note, I used to own a lot of gerbils and the females incredibly are territorial and vicious. You could have 3 males in a cage and no problem, hell they would just lie altogether and have it comfy. With females, however, having two in a cage was difficult because if anything changed slightly they'd be tearing at each other's throats.
Sounds like a day at the office! :lol:

Hi Blossom,

Everyone's always talking about serotonin, but I don't find anything that says what symptoms of high serotonin, unless someone gets their blood levels checked. Any good clues? Does it have anything to do with wanting to rip someone's head off? :) Thanks,
 

Blossom

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

It's hard to really say for certain beyond diarrhea for me that certain symptoms are caused by high serotonin. If I had a way of routinely monitoring my serotonin I could probably make a more of a correlation. I suspect that high serotonin and high estrogen go hand in hand for me at least partially. When I'm feeling particularly defeated easily that is a clue that all is not well. At a time when my blood work showed high serotonin I had diarrhea and felt generally very stressed and hopeless. I'm not aware of any official list of symptoms caused by excessive serotonin in general but there could be one. Mainstream views of serotonin seem to be that it is positive so finding unbiased views on serotonin seem hard to find. I will post more if I find anything pertinent. Hope that at least partially answers your question.
 

Blossom

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

I found what I was looking for. There is a March 2011 newsletter on the topic of serotonin that I will see if I can either post or at minimum answer your question in more detail by tomorrow.
 

Kray

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

Great, I look forward to reading it. Thanks so much for your efforts! :)
 
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lvysaur

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

Blossom said:
It's hard to really say for certain beyond diarrhea for me that certain symptoms are caused by high serotonin.

Interesting. The one time I supplemented melatonin, my poop was literally liquefied the morning after.

I also had two panic attacks several years ago, both of which happened in the same week. Each one happened right after waking up from a very vivid dream. Each one happened while I was on the toilet, as I had to defecate right after waking. Within a minute or so of sitting on the toilet, my heart started beating suddenly, very fast, and my muscles were failing; it took every ounce of my strength just to keep myself sitting, and prevent myself from falling over. I thought I was actually dying the first time it happened.

Could the panic attack have been related to serotonin syndrome? They both happened in the same week, and never again. They both happened right after waking from a vivid dream, and they both happened right after sitting on the loo to take a dump.
 

Blossom

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

That is interesting. I know that melatonin is isn't recommended for supplementation by Peat and both serotonin and melatonin definitely have their dark side. Your reaction on the toilet could have happened by bearing down putting pressure on the vagus nerve, or not, it's just a guess. Hopefully the article will answer lots of questions. I'm going to work on getting it posted as soon a possible today. I have to work too so it may take a little time.
 

mas

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

I too am trying to learn more about seratonin considering my long history of gut issues and "allergy'" If I remember correctly, RP says 95% of seratonin is found in the gut.

from Ray Peat
Serotonin, depression, and aggression: The problem of brain energy

Serotonin research is relatively new, but it rivals estrogen research for the level of incompetence and apparent fraudulent intent that can be found in professional publications...

…Serotonin and histamine are increased by estrogen, and their activation mimics the effects of estrogen…

…Estrogen activates MAST CELLS to release histamine and serotonin, and activated mast cells can produce brain edema and demyelination…


Recently Mast Cell Disorders have become more well known due to the work of Dr. Theoharides and Dr. Arfin. The medical model only recognized mastocytosis and its specific criteria as a viable diagnosis, but the work of a small group of doctors is expanding on mast cell disorders. I think the current "Allergy" industry is an erroneous diversion, and mast cell degranulation directly from estrogen and seratonin is what is causing a lot of pathology and suffering.

Dr. Afrin found that by using the correct staining techniques in the gut, he found numerous patients whose guts were loaded with high abnormal amounts of mast cells. Many of these patients suffered for years without understanding what was wrong with them, and the doctors that they saw treated them as if they were crazy. It is very difficult to get a doctor to even think of mast cell degranulation as a factor because they don't understand it and they never learned about this subject.

Dr Theoharides has correlated mast cells disorders with asthma, atopic dermatitis, cardiovascular disease, fibromyalgia/CFS/ irritable bowe ,hives, migraine, etc…

http://www.mastocytosis.ca/2011%20MSC%2 ... slides.pdf

http://www.tufts.edu/~ttheoh01/mastcell ... mation.pdf

Antihistamines and aspirin help. Does anyone has any more info from RP on the mast cell/seratonin relationship?
 

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

I was actually going to recommend reading the article you referred to above posted by Charlie. It's all connected and I think that doing all the typical Peat inspired approaches including balanced protein could only help by avoiding an overload of tryptophan converting to serotonin. I'm off to the office but I will do my best to get the mentioned newsletter posted asap.
 

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

Here is a paragraph from the March 2011 newsletter entitled Serotonin: Effects in disease, aging and inflammation
Ray wrote:
In the early 1950's, several people recognized the symptoms produced by administering an excess of serotonin were similar to those experienced by people with intestinal tumors called argentaffinomas or carcinoid tumors, which are usually in the small intestine or appendix. The normal intestine contains about 95% of the serotonin in the body( and the brain normally contains only about 1%), and in the normal person only about 1% of the dietary tryptophan is converted to serotonin. But in an advanced case of carcinoid, 60% of the tryptophan can be turned into serotonin. Especially if the tumor has invaded the liver, the serotonin won't be destroyed by the liver in the usual way, and will circulate in the blood stream at high levels, producing symptoms of flushing, sweating(sometimes dark colored), diarrhea ( serotonin stimulates the small intestine smooth muscle, but inhibits the large), nausea, anxiety, reduced urination, muscle and joint pains and in late stages very often cardiovascular disease( especially inflammation, fibroma, and calcification of the valves in the right side of the heart) and aggressive behaviour (Russo, etc all.,2004) and psychosis.
This is an extreme example of what serotonin can do in certain contexts.
 

Kray

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Re: Omega3s, estrogen, what causes hair loss? My personal s

Blossom said:
Here is a paragraph from the March 2011 newsletter entitled Serotonin: Effects in disease, aging and inflammation
Ray wrote:
In the early 1950's, several people recognized the symptoms produced by administering an excess of serotonin were similar to those experienced by people with intestinal tumors called argentaffinomas or carcinoid tumors, which are usually in the small intestine or appendix. The normal intestine contains about 95% of the serotonin in the body( and the brain normally contains only about 1%), and in the normal person only about 1% of the dietary tryptophan is converted to serotonin. But in an advanced case of carcinoid, 60% of the tryptophan can be turned into serotonin. Especially if the tumor has invaded the liver, the serotonin won't be destroyed by the liver in the usual way, and will circulate in the blood stream at high levels, producing symptoms of flushing, sweating(sometimes dark colored), diarrhea ( serotonin stimulates the small intestine smooth muscle, but inhibits the large), nausea, anxiety, reduced urination, muscle and joint pains and in late stages very often cardiovascular disease( especially inflammation, fibroma, and calcification of the valves in the right side of the heart) and aggressive behaviour (Russo, etc all.,2004) and psychosis.
This is an extreme example of what serotonin can do in certain contexts.

Wow, I would have hated to be that rat! Well, I suppose we can rest assured none of us is to that point. But it does help to understand the physiology better of these things that we so often talk about but don't always understand what to look for if it may really be an issue in our individual situation. I'll have to look at cortisol next.... Thanks, Blossom :)
 

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