Opinions On My Theory About Male Pattern Baldness

[ebs]

I don't know what to make of this but I feel it mostly just comes down to genetics. I've seen the most androgenic men having a full, thick head of hair while seeing many effeminate men (nerdy ICT guys) going bald.

A very random but good example is mobster Sonny Franzese. One of the toughest guys of his era who now at over age 100 still has a full head of hair. If you look at pictures from his youth you see a very masculine guy. He was discharged from the military during WW2 because of 'homicidal tendencies'. Now that says something!

As for myself, I never tested DHT but I can relate to the type of person the OP describes. I had a troubled childhood growing up with lots of stress of which I still face the consequences today (which is why I'm here working on optimizing my health). That would mean I would be completely bald right now but I have extremely thick hair which I inherited from my father's side of the family. Needless to say nobody on that side of the family has turned bald. I also have gyno from puberty and a thick beard growing well up my cheeks and masculine facial features.

 

[Risingfire]

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.

Spironolactone does more than just reduce the androgens.

 

[PurpleHeart]

Spironolactone does more than just reduce the androgens.

You imply an aldosterone renin mechanism is behind it ???
Well minoxodil does work and even though minoxidil has some potential anti androgenic effects the fact that it works on beard and body hair too doesn't support
an anti androgen mechanism of action so maybe we are missing something here

 

[Vinny]

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

The first part quite good, the evolutionary one - disapointing, least to say... that,s my opinion.
Thank u for trying to sort this out, it,s a nice contribution. Your English is more than enough.

 

[Waynish]

I didn't read this, but if you're really trying to figure it out then I would look into Taoism. I don't have time to look through the literature, but here's an approximate quote: "after orgasm the fire comes up to burn the roots." Also implies that sebum would be produced. This reaction in men leads to the pattern of degeneration of the hair roots.