Opinions On My Theory About Male Pattern Baldness

[PurpleHeart]

First of all Hello everyone,i am a new member and fan of ray peat's work.


Also i wanna say english is not my mother tongue so excuse any mistakes.


So here it goes....
My theory of why and how men go bald and the purpose it serves evolutionarily.

I will start with the main mechanism iof how it happens and get into why later.

So my theory is that the mechanism goes as follows, under stress progesterone is lowered to produce cortisol
when progesterone is lowered, the testosterone/estrogen ratio turns more in favor of estrogen.
The body up-regulates 5ar enzymes to produce more DHT to bring everything back in balance,
And acutely it works,but...
in chronic stress Progesterone stays chronicaly low so aromatase and 5ar is no longer kept in check,
and estrogen stays elevated.
So Dht stays chronicaly high to keep estrogen in check.
Now we have a state of low progesterone relatively high estrogen and a high Dht/testosterone ratio.
The body keeps up-regulating 5ar in an atempt to lower estrogen but since the stress is still there
progesterone stays realtively low,and the problem persists.
The high cortisol is also messing up the pge2/pgd2 ratio we see in balding scalps in favor of pgd2.

Now i know that many might disagree because dht is extremely beneficial to males but my opinion is that
dht acts as a male stress hormone that is suposed to bring estrogen down to normal levels in times of acute
stress.
When it fails to do so it stays chronically elevated and the DHT/T ratio gets in favor of dht.
Along with the fall in progesterone and the relatively high estrogen,Androgen sensitive tissue like
skin and prostate get over stimulated and the result after a long time is hairloss and prostate hyperplasia.

Now someone might ask yeah but why would that hormonal state destroys hair follicles,
well... it servers a purpose from an evolutionary perspective,
That i propose below.

There are many more to the mechanism but this is the main idea.

Now for the evolutionary reason behind this.

I assume that the main chronic stress back in the time before civilization was Mating.

So what baldness does is it makes bald and usually older males less attractive to young females.
This both protects the bald male from being killed by a younger stronger male due to competition.
Forcing the older male to become a provider for older females in the tribe instead of running behind
young females,And also ensuring that younger and healthier males with healthier sperm will mate with
the young females of the tribe producing better offspring.

This also explains the defensive "balding personality" Danny roddy talks about.

It also explains the tendency of young women to find bald men repulsive
While older women usually either dont mind baldness or even like it because it signifies maturity.

So continuous stress which causes chronically low progesterone causes baldness.
And this is why finasteride works finasteride is basically slightly altered progesterone.
Merck probably did this because they couldnt pattent progesterone and sell it for millions
but im sure plain ol progesterone can prevent baldness just fine.

but maybe supplemental progesterone is not the way to go.
adaptogens to lower stress good metabolism and nutrition so progesterone stays naturally high will
probably delay baldness as long as possible

So thats it folks thanks for taking the time to read it :))).
I am really bad at writing but i aspire to write in a better manner some day

Really looking forward to opinions discussions
Also keep in mind its just a late night theory i came up with take it with a grain of salt

 

[ecstatichamster]

Welcome to the forum, @PurpleHeart

Your English is wonderful and your post is a great contribution to discussion!

What about the idea of prostaglandins being linked to hair loss in men?

Prostaglandin D2 Inhibits Hair Growth and Is Elevated in Bald Scalp of Men with Androgenetic Alopecia

Our own @Travis has long thought so.

 

[tallglass13]

@PurpleHeart , I most certainly agree and concur!

 

[lampofred]

I agree that at its core it comes down to chronic stress and resulting low metabolism. But I don't know if I agree that it serves any sort of "evolutionary purpose" I think it could also just be that as energy production is lowered, your body just has less energy to spend on non-vital tissues such as hair, skin, nails.

 

[tallglass13]

I agree that at its core it comes down to chronic stress and resulting low metabolism. But I don't know if I agree that it serves any sort of "evolutionary purpose" I think it could also just be that as energy production is lowered, your body just has less energy to spend on non-vital tissues such as hair, skin, nails.

true, but remember that some men get hair all over their back and shoulders , but get bald on top of head. My uncle is bald, but his fingernails grow like crazy, and very strong. So the body is still making hair and nails, and of course skin.

 

[lampofred]

true, but remember that some men get hair all over their back and shoulders , but get bald on top of head. My uncle is bald, but his fingernails grow like crazy, and very strong. So the body is still making hair and nails, and of course skin.

This might sound a bit convoluted but: as your overall metabolism slows (and tonic GABA levels go down), blood and heat get selectively directed to the brain. Peat said he thinks the purpose of hair is to keep the brain warm. So when your brain is much hotter than the rest of your body, it doesn't need the hair anymore and the hair starts falling off. Whereas the rest of your body is too cool, so hair begins growing in those places to warm those areas up.

I just think it's depressing to think that nature would single out people as "undesirable" lol so i try to think of functional explanations.

 

[PurpleHeart]

I think that we need to figure out why mpb happens so much more frequently to males than females and at a such younger age.
And the thing is that the Heat theory doesn't really explain that.
Although since women have minimal levels of androgens compared to men but can still go bald i would say that maybe adrenal and not gonadal androgens are to blame for mpb.
And since adrenal androgens are produced under stress i think that the stress theory is more valid than any "mechanical" theories like scalp tension or heat etc.


Also we know that 5ar deficient males never go bald and eunuchs don't go bald either which brings me to my next point

Now if you look at the mechanism i proposed above it's high DHT/T ratio and high E/Progesterone ratio
Eunuchs have very little estrogen since they don't have any testosterone to make any so the E/progesterone ratio stays in favor of progesterone so the mpb cascade doesn't happen.

And 5ar deficient males are protected from mpb because even if the E/progesterone ratio gets messed up their body is unable to up-regulate 5ar enzymes in scalp skin since they are deficient so the mpb cascade again doesn't happen and they don't lose their hair although 5ar deficient males still get prostate cancer because
the excitatory effects of excess estrogen is carcinogenic for the prostate especially in the absense of DHT which in the correct amounts is protective for the prostate.

What i believe is that DHT is a male stress hormone that needs to be kept in check like any other stress hormone of the body if it starts getting out of control it
overstimulates the androgen sensitive tissue causing problems.

Also there is a study with older men with low T on Testosterone replacement therapy that shows that after T administration DHT levels actually decreased
Indicating that if the ratio of T/DHT stays in favor of T and estrogen is not high the body has no reason to keep dht high so 5ar enzymes get down regulated.


So from my point of view DHT acts much like a stress hormone that is needed in high amounts for a short time under certain conditions but should return to normal levels when the stress stops much like cortisol nitric oxide etc.

 

[jb116]

My arm and finger hair grows fiercely when the weather starts to warm up i.e. spring time, without fail every year. I don't think human hair has to do with warming at all.

Also it is presumptuous to think that bald men are undesirable. There are many women who find the bald head or even intentionally shaven head sexy and masculine.

 

[PurpleHeart]

My arm and finger hair grows fiercely when the weather starts to warm up i.e. spring time, without fail every year. I don't think human hair has to do with warming at all.

Also it is presumptuous to think that bald men are undesirable. There are many women who find the bald head or even intentionally shaven head sexy and masculine.

I agree that hair is much more complicated than just heat



Also i said that it's young women mainly looking for hookups that don't find bald men attractive
Older women who are looking for providers protectors that will stay faithfull to them actually find bald men attractive because they radiate a sense of maturity
also the fact that they lived long enough to go bald signifies good survival skills

 

[redsun]

First of all Hello everyone,i am a new member and fan of ray peat's work.


Also i wanna say english is not my mother tongue so excuse any mistakes.


So here it goes....
My theory of why and how men go bald and the purpose it serves evolutionarily.

I will start with the main mechanism iof how it happens and get into why later.

So my theory is that the mechanism goes as follows, under stress progesterone is lowered to produce cortisol
when progesterone is lowered, the testosterone/estrogen ratio turns more in favor of estrogen.
The body up-regulates 5ar enzymes to produce more DHT to bring everything back in balance,
And acutely it works,but...
in chronic stress Progesterone stays chronicaly low so aromatase and 5ar is no longer kept in check,
and estrogen stays elevated.
So Dht stays chronicaly high to keep estrogen in check.
Now we have a state of low progesterone relatively high estrogen and a high Dht/testosterone ratio.
The body keeps up-regulating 5ar in an atempt to lower estrogen but since the stress is still there
progesterone stays realtively low,and the problem persists.
The high cortisol is also messing up the pge2/pgd2 ratio we see in balding scalps in favor of pgd2.

Now i know that many might disagree because dht is extremely beneficial to males but my opinion is that
dht acts as a male stress hormone that is suposed to bring estrogen down to normal levels in times of acute
stress.
When it fails to do so it stays chronically elevated and the DHT/T ratio gets in favor of dht.
Along with the fall in progesterone and the relatively high estrogen,Androgen sensitive tissue like
skin and prostate get over stimulated and the result after a long time is hairloss and prostate hyperplasia.

Now someone might ask yeah but why would that hormonal state destroys hair follicles,
well... it servers a purpose from an evolutionary perspective,
That i propose below.

There are many more to the mechanism but this is the main idea.

Now for the evolutionary reason behind this.

I assume that the main chronic stress back in the time before civilization was Mating.

So what baldness does is it makes bald and usually older males less attractive to young females.
This both protects the bald male from being killed by a younger stronger male due to competition.
Forcing the older male to become a provider for older females in the tribe instead of running behind
young females,And also ensuring that younger and healthier males with healthier sperm will mate with
the young females of the tribe producing better offspring.

This also explains the defensive "balding personality" Danny roddy talks about.

It also explains the tendency of young women to find bald men repulsive
While older women usually either dont mind baldness or even like it because it signifies maturity.

So continuous stress which causes chronically low progesterone causes baldness.
And this is why finasteride works finasteride is basically slightly altered progesterone.
Merck probably did this because they couldnt pattent progesterone and sell it for millions
but im sure plain ol progesterone can prevent baldness just fine.

but maybe supplemental progesterone is not the way to go.
adaptogens to lower stress good metabolism and nutrition so progesterone stays naturally high will
probably delay baldness as long as possible

So thats it folks thanks for taking the time to read it :))).
I am really bad at writing but i aspire to write in a better manner some day

Really looking forward to opinions discussions
Also keep in mind its just a late night theory i came up with take it with a grain of salt

In my opinion, blaming it on hormone imbalance is like a cop out. Its much too easy to look to hormone imbalance. This is a general thing on this forum to always go back to hormones. I am not criticizing you however, I just think its important we pull back to the essentials. Hormones are not the basic building blocks of hair, keratin(protein) is. Yes hormones have a profound effect but I do not believe for a second something as important as hair on the head is that subject to change based on natural fluctuations of hormones based on daily stressors that we all deal with. In my opinion there is a clear metabolic dysfunction.

I know so many middle aged men, even older who have no sign of baldness. And there are even more that are balding. Some start balding shortly after 20. If the answer was so simply hormone imbalance, hair loss would have been cured. We wouldnt have young men balding early and old men not balding at all. You have people taking finasteride to lower DHT levels. Side effects include permanent sexual dysfunction. Nice.

Keratin is protein with cysteine making about 24% of its composition. Right there is a possible answer. Low cysteine is unlikely however but nowadays it seems you can get a deficiency of anything thanks to the barrage of restrictive diets there are in the modern day. Iron, zinc, magnesium, potassium, are all necessary for protein synthesis. Im sure other minerals have a role but thats just what I found with a quick google search. B vitamins generally play a role in protein metabolism, B12 also which contains cobalt. Vitamin C is important for collLooking for and researching basic vitamins and minerals that are needed for protein synthesis should be the main objective if one wants to fix hair loss.

I remember reading from a user here that they were able to stop their hair loss with iron supplementation after trying many other things which flies in the face of the science many peaters here follow which paint iron as the devil 90% of the time and that iron deficiency is extremely rare. Not likely seeing as most westerners barely get any heme-iron nowadays if at all and end up with non-heme iron with extremely low availability with so many variables affecting absorption leading some to absorb insufficient amounts. Nothing should be off the table.

 

[lampofred]

I think that we need to figure out why mpb happens so much more frequently to males than females and at a such younger age.
And the thing is that the Heat theory doesn't really explain that.
Although since women have minimal levels of androgens compared to men but can still go bald i would say that maybe adrenal and not gonadal androgens are to blame for mpb.
And since adrenal androgens are produced under stress i think that the stress theory is more valid than any "mechanical" theories like scalp tension or heat etc.


Also we know that 5ar deficient males never go bald and eunuchs don't go bald either which brings me to my next point

Now if you look at the mechanism i proposed above it's high DHT/T ratio and high E/Progesterone ratio
Eunuchs have very little estrogen since they don't have any testosterone to make any so the E/progesterone ratio stays in favor of progesterone so the mpb cascade doesn't happen.

And 5ar deficient males are protected from mpb because even if the E/progesterone ratio gets messed up their body is unable to up-regulate 5ar enzymes in scalp skin since they are deficient so the mpb cascade again doesn't happen and they don't lose their hair although 5ar deficient males still get prostate cancer because
the excitatory effects of excess estrogen is carcinogenic for the prostate especially in the absense of DHT which in the correct amounts is protective for the prostate.

What i believe is that DHT is a male stress hormone that needs to be kept in check like any other stress hormone of the body if it starts getting out of control it
overstimulates the androgen sensitive tissue causing problems.

Also there is a study with older men with low T on Testosterone replacement therapy that shows that after T administration DHT levels actually decreased
Indicating that if the ratio of T/DHT stays in favor of T and estrogen is not high the body has no reason to keep dht high so 5ar enzymes get down regulated.


So from my point of view DHT acts much like a stress hormone that is needed in high amounts for a short time under certain conditions but should return to normal levels when the stress stops much like cortisol nitric oxide etc.

Women, even when under chronic stress, have much more dopamine and progesterone than males. Castrates have more dopamine and more progesterone as well. It is only non castrated males under chronic stress that are highly vulnerable to getting low dopamine and low progesterone. Because dopamine is what inhibits the adrenals and stimulates progesterone production.

The heat theory is pretty similar to your estrogen/progesterone theory. Estrogen is "hot-headedness" since it is excitatory, progesterone is cool and calm since it is GABAergic.

 

[Curiousman]

 

[PurpleHeart]

In my opinion, blaming it on hormone imbalance is like a cop out. Its much too easy to look to hormone imbalance. This is a general thing on this forum to always go back to hormones. I am not criticizing you however, I just think its important we pull back to the essentials. Hormones are not the basic building blocks of hair, keratin(protein) is. Yes hormones have a profound effect but I do not believe for a second something as important as hair on the head is that subject to change based on natural fluctuations of hormones based on daily stressors that we all deal with. In my opinion there is a clear metabolic dysfunction.

I know so many middle aged men, even older who have no sign of baldness. And there are even more that are balding. Some start balding shortly after 20. If the answer was so simply hormone imbalance, hair loss would have been cured. We wouldnt have young men balding early and old men not balding at all. You have people taking finasteride to lower DHT levels. Side effects include permanent sexual dysfunction. Nice.

Keratin is protein with cysteine making about 24% of its composition. Right there is a possible answer. Low cysteine is unlikely however but nowadays it seems you can get a deficiency of anything thanks to the barrage of restrictive diets there are in the modern day. Iron, zinc, magnesium, potassium, are all necessary for protein synthesis. Im sure other minerals have a role but thats just what I found with a quick google search. B vitamins generally play a role in protein metabolism, B12 also which contains cobalt. Vitamin C is important for collLooking for and researching basic vitamins and minerals that are needed for protein synthesis should be the main objective if one wants to fix hair loss.

I remember reading from a user here that they were able to stop their hair loss with iron supplementation after trying many other things which flies in the face of the science many peaters here follow which paint iron as the devil 90% of the time and that iron deficiency is extremely rare. Not likely seeing as most Iwesterners barely get any heme-iron nowadays if at all and end up with non-heme iron with extremely low availability with so many variables affecting absorption leading some to absorb insufficient amounts. Nothing should be off the table.

Hello @redsun i dont disagree that there might be other factors involved but the nutrition deficiency theory fails to explain the gender difference of hair loss
if anything women are a lot more prone to fall pray to fad diets crash dieting anorexia etc.
still they don't lose their hair nearly as much as men do.
Also if hormones aren't the main mechanism then how do male to female transgender women are pretty much the most successful of all people at regrowing hair.

Also i don't believe that the amount of a hormone is the main factor that mediates its effects, i believe that ratios between hormones are more important,
Maybe this is why transgender women find success in topical estrogen for hair regrowth, even if estrogen is toxic in high amounts maybe applying it on an androgen saturated scalp brings the ratio back in balance by antagonizing androgens and lets hair growth resume.
or maybe supplementing estrogen causes the adrenals to produce a lot of progesterone to antagonize the estrogen or something.

Anyway i certainly believe its a hormonal thing since there are anorexic women with more hair than men who eat diets of plenty of food and in great varieties
so nutrition deficiency doesnt cut it for me.

 

[tallglass13]

This might sound a bit convoluted but: as your overall metabolism slows (and tonic GABA levels go down), blood and heat get selectively directed to the brain. Peat said he thinks the purpose of hair is to keep the brain warm. So when your brain is much hotter than the rest of your body, it doesn't need the hair anymore and the hair starts falling off. Whereas the rest of your body is too cool, so hair begins growing in those places to warm those areas up.

I just think it's depressing to think that nature would single out people as "undesirable" lol so i try to think of functional explanations.

That is a very interesting theory. As we know that heat does leave through the top of head. I have thought about that also. That is why people were hats or beanies in the cold, in order to hold in some heat. So if the body or brain is overheated, I can see how the high temp and steam can burn out hair.

 

[broozer]

i think i like your theory. if you see finasteride as progesteron-analogon, how would you describe the persisting troubles after quitting it? (so called PFS)
from my own experience i can tell: before FIN i was ambitios, competitive, passive-aggressive and cared a lot about what otheres were thinking about me. While on FIN i was very chill layback surfer guy foolin around and didnt care what others thought about me and kinda "doin it my way" attitude.
after quitting FIN im getting more and more the old me character-wise but with compromised health (insomnia/anxiety)

 

[tallglass13]

Hello @redsun i dont disagree that there might be other factors involved but the nutrition deficiency theory fails to explain the gender difference of hair loss
if anything women are a lot more prone to fall pray to fad diets crash dieting anorexia etc.
still they don't lose their hair nearly as much as men do.
Also if hormones aren't the main mechanism then how do male to female transgender women are pretty much the most successful of all people at regrowing hair.

Also i don't believe that the amount of a hormone is the main factor that mediates its effects, i believe that ratios between hormones are more important,
Maybe this is why transgender women find success in topical estrogen for hair regrowth, even if estrogen is toxic in high amounts maybe applying it on an androgen saturated scalp brings the ratio back in balance by antagonizing androgens and lets hair growth resume.
or maybe supplementing estrogen causes the adrenals to produce a lot of progesterone to antagonize the estrogen or something.

Anyway i certainly believe its a hormonal thing since there are anorexic women with more hair than men who eat diets of plenty of food and in great varieties
so nutrition deficiency doesnt cut it for me.

I agree again. Pictures of German concentration camps prove this as well. In Grant Genereux's book on Vit A toxicity, he provides plenty of pics of starving men and women, which all kept a full head of hair, and perfect skin and eyes to boot.

 

[tallglass13]

i think i like your theory. if you see finasteride as progesteron-analogon, how would you describe the persisting troubles after quitting it? (so called PFS)
from my own experience i can tell: before FIN i was ambitios, competitive, passive-aggressive and cared a lot about what otheres were thinking about me. While on FIN i was very chill layback surfer guy foolin around and didnt care what others thought about me and kinda "doin it my way" attitude.
after quitting FIN im getting more and more the old me character-wise but with compromised health (insomnia/anxiety)

I think this only happens with the prescription toxic drugs like fin or Avodart. they alter the starting material which is Progesterone, and create a Frankenstein Progesterone. It is known that Finasteride binds NADPH. Finasteride also disables the livers ability to make 5ar.
So, finasteride lowers DHT while on it. When you come off, you will notice huge libido increase at first. this is because since your DHT was suppressed, this upregulated your receptors or AR. Now that you are off fin, your body ends up trying to bind the huge increase in DHT with Androgen binding proteins. So they end up not working. Also, Finasteride doesn't even covert to any cortisol like normal Progesterone does. Fin blocks the person from making Allopregnenolone, for the brain, causing severe depression and depersonalization.
The main thing is getting the liver to make 5ar again. Different Chinese herbs and some of Haiduts supps can definitely help regenerate the system. I am back to normal after several years of healing. I took and Avodart about 6 months ago , that messed me up for 8 wks, due to the half life.

 

[redsun]

I agree again. Pictures of German concentration camps prove this as well. In Grant Genereux's book on Vit A toxicity, he provides plenty of pics of starving men and women, which all kept a full head of hair, and perfect skin and eyes to boot.

Starvation isnt necessarily the same thing as metabolic dysfunction due to deficiencies. If prior to starvation one was eating well and had all vitamins and minerals, there is no reason you should lose hair because your body has large stores of nutrients from your adequate diet. Hair takes a long time to feel the effects of inadequate diet, a long period of high calorie malnutrition which leads to poor hair quality and/or hair loss. Theres a reason hair loss is more common in the modern age along with every other sign of poor metabolism. Once you are in the position where you already have consistent hair loss, it takes a nutrient dense regime that allows the body to build up nutrient stores so it is able to grow and maintain hair.

Hair is not necessary for survival, neither is good skin quality, sexual function, a lean aesthetic physique, good looks, etc. When we start on the premise that are body wants to survive first, then in abundance will improve aesthetic features(skin, hair, sexual characteristics) then its not hard to understand why in the modern day hair loss is so common.

I follow the carnivore community a lot seeing as I used to be one, many report much better hair quality when on it. Some also report hair loss doing it likely because of low protein and lack of organ meats. I do believe low carb can cause hair loss especially keto because it controls protein intake which prevents your body from making glucose from protein and leads to a catabolic state while high protein carnivore remedies that somewhat.

The high nutrient content is likely responsible for improving hair in carnivore dieters if one starts eating organs regularly. If one wants to avoid liver because of high copper/Vitamin A, heart and kidneys are good options. Dont need to go full carnivore.

 

[Risingfire]

I think it's a lot more complicated and simple than anyone understands. I don't think DHT really has much to do with it. I went bald pretty young and my DHT isn't very high. According to the medical world, I should have a luscious head of hair. I have a feeling cortisol and possibly adrenaline spikes have more to do with it. And as haidut has mentioned other factors that we haven't determined or even discovered.

 

[PurpleHeart]

This is all good but...... we still fail to explain how the hell transgender women regrow hair by blocking androgens and taking estrogen if hairloss was a slow metabolism thing then we all know pretty damn well that blocking androgens and taking estrogen should made things worse because estrogen sure as hell doesn't help the metabolism thyroid etc. at least that's what we think.

Also another thing i wanna say is that we have zero evidence that hair loss is caused by a slow metabolism so if we keep throwing that around with zero proof
we are not any better than the mainstream scientists blaming everything they cant explain on "Genetics".

I personally know diabetics who went blind by it and still retained a full thick head of hair so i am not really convinced the ability to metabolise glucose has anything to do with it.

Also i know trans women with great hair from taking estrogen and anti-androgens so i am more inclined in a hormonal explanation.

Another thing i wanna say is that the body's ability to slow metabolism cannot be seen as something evil its an evolutionary mechanism that most creatures possess
and when resources are limited its actually protective to have a slow metabolism since it can help you retain calories and nutrients and delay starvation.

i strongly believe that long healthy hair radiate health and make you more attractive that's a no brainer so i think that hair loss must be some kind of dysfunction
but until i can get any proof on slow metabolism causing hair loss i cant really be convinced.