Some SOLID Bro Science On Balding

GorillaHead

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Among the raypeat community and in line with Danny Roddys theory on hair-loss. Balding is essentially fibrosis.

We know from biopsies that balding scalp has perifollicular fibrosis.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmedPerifollicular fibrosis: pathogenetic role in androgenetic ... - NCBI

Essentially the prognosis is hyperkeratinization. Collagen bundles dense up the scalp skin and result in harder skin that essentially suffocates hair follicles from their own blood flow. This is an epigenetic change as a result of inflammation.

Why women don’t bald as often as men do is clear and that’s due to aromatase. Now when I speak about aromatase it’s important not to think of aromatase and estrogen as synonymous.

It’s also important to understand that hormones in the skin are different than hormones in serum. They don’t always align with one another.

We know from a very powerful study that in a balding man the back of his head has higher levels of aromatase and in a women the front scalp has high levels of aromatase 4 fold. Androgenetic Alopecia in Women - ScienceDirect

Skin in men is very interesting because it has been proven that men have thicker skin then women. Male versus female skin: What dermatologists and cosmeticians should know

This is no doubt due to androgens. The positive is our skin tends to age better, however increased localized androgens will leads to overly dense skin.

Men who are fully bald have shiny heads because the skin is hardened and fibrotic. When I say hard I am not talking so hard it’s like rock. It’s harder than it was before.

What I am trying to lead up to is the fact that elastic softer skin is ideal for hair conditions to grow. We can see that in Frontal Fibrosing alopecia hair is almost completely destroyed. What’s interesting is antiandrogens have been shown to improve conditions of front fibrosing alopecia.
Clearly cause skin will slow down it’s fibrosis process.

Finasteride-mediated hair regrowth and reversal of atrophy in a patient with frontal fibrosing alopecia

Hair growth is about the balance between 5ar and aromatase. When men get older they tend to develop more body hair because there is higher levels of aromatase developing. Aromatase grows hair but not by itself it needs androgens to grow.

  • Body hair is essentially a balanced ratio of aromatase and androgens. ( young men are androgen dominant.). Women don’t experience body hair because they are aromatase dominant.
  • While male pattern baldness is a ratio of high androgens to very little aromatase. The scalp seems to be immune to the mild increase of serum aromatase older men experience it still locally has higher levels of androgens. That’s the biggest mystery.

It’s possible gravity has something to do with it or maybe the lack of vitamin D synthesis. Interestingly severity of scleroderma (skin fibrosis disease) is inversely correlated with vdr. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc › articles › PMC5042230Low vitamin D status in systemic sclerosis and the impact on ...

Vdr has direct action in androgen sensitivity. Not everyone benefits from vitamin D supplementation as not everyone has the same sensitivity and there are tons of polymorphism however, genes associated with vdr have been linked to baldness.

In rats that were sent to space for some odd reason their thin skinned out but what happened was their hair grew like crazy which is interesting because there is no gravity in space. news.softpedia.com › News › Science › Sci PryHair Grows Faster and Thicker in Space, Experiments Reveal

A shot in the dark we could say that gravity is necessary for thicker skin.

In a documented scenario of two twins one who took dutasteride and one who didn’t we can see the man who was on dutasteride his hair is perfect while his twin receded to like a Norwood 3. But let’s not take a look at the hair but rather their skin. The twin on dutasteride has rosier cheeks like a women! Why? Because he is on anti androgens and he has thinner skin now. We also can infer that the nose on the twin of the dutasteride user also has a slightly thinner less bulbous nose, again this is related to thinner skin.
See attached photo


Solutions and Why finasteride and dutasteride doesn’t always work.


Many people who get on finasteride find out that their hairloss hasn’t stopped falling out or their hair stays the same. They don’t see regrowth.

Now this is where I inject some bro science. Since scalp fibrosis is an epigenetic change induced by the body there is a system that works to change the scalp. The hair doesn’t just actually die because the skin is pushing on it. Rather hair follicle in these dense fibrotic conditions are told to die off with dht. That’s the signal to tell the hair to move out it’s time for some skin. So when you get on finasteride (inhibits 5ar2 and inhibits 5ar1 but significantly less) you are stopping one part of the process because 5ar2 isn’t really found in the skin. It’s in the follicle. Now when you get on dutasteride you tend to see way more success as shown by studies! people think it’s because you are inhibiting more dht! Yes that’s correct. The dht that’s found in the skin 5ar1 ! So now with duatsteride you are targeting two pathways to balding scalp.

You are stopping the signal that tells the hair to move and you are reversing the ***t condition of follicular fibrosis the hair is surrounded by.

The thing is if aromatase doesn’t increase sufficiently in the scalp skin what happens is testosterone will be the weaker androgen that will slowly cause fibrosis in the skin because it will stay in the scalp in high levels since 5ar is inhibited and aromatase enzymes are low. All about the ratio.

In the end it’s all about breaking fibrosis and inhibiting. The issue with using supplements like K2 for example to break down fibrosis is they essentially would be fighting a losing battle hormones are the main powerful signals in the body. The hormones in the scalp are inducing the fibrosis so no matter how much anti fibrosis supplements you take they aren’t strong enough to fight back an action that significantly much stronger. In fact supplementing may result in more testosterone only to create more fibrosis as you support the condition.


So what solutions do we have? (Maintenance only)


SKIN STRETCHING. will help with fibrosis.

Stretching Reduces Skin Thickness and Improves Subcutaneous Tissue Mobility in a Murine Model of Systemic Sclerosis

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc › articles › PMC4740347Standardized Scalp Massage Results in Increased Hair ...


This theoretically should work and many have found that it has. However the tedious amount of work and consistent work necessary to actually make a difference is realistically not ideal.


INDUCING AROMATASE LOCALLY

This is something I personally have been researching. Right now I just started on a dexamethasone topical treatment. Be warned that there could be unforeseen side effects and until I finish my experiment I have no idea this will work. Glucorticoids can be very dangerous.


But what’s great about dexamethasone it does two things. It increases sensitivity to vdr and it increase aromatase transcription.

https://eje.bioscientifica.com/downloadpdf/journals/eje/152/4/1520619.pdf

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmedDexamethasone enhances vitamin D-24-hydroxylase ... - NCBI

Dexamethasone also happens to do things like thin the skin like other glucocorticoids and their overuse tends to lead to redness something that may be similar to what happens with anti androgen use like the rosy cheeks I discussed above. I believe it’s moderate use and cycling the and tapering is use is necessary to avoid serious consequences. We don’t want to really reduce skin thickness as much as just makes less dense and hard.

also dexa would not work orally as it’s affects on serum hormones and glands would be detrimental to hair growth.

LOCAL ANDROGEN INHIBITION

Ketocanazole and miconazole are two anti fungal drugs that can inhibit steroid genesis. These drugs will reduce testosterone in the scalp.

www.sciencedirect.com › science › article › piiEconazole and miconazole inhibit steroidogenesis and disrupt ...


All these mentioned solutions may not be powerful enough to put an end to MPB but they offer ways to target the problem from different angles without inhibiting our beloved and very necessary serum androgens.

In the end the biggest question we are left with is what are all the possible causes for skin fibrosis. What are the triggers? Gravity ? Tension? Cortisol? PUFA apparently tends to shoot up in the body like physically can’t remember where I read this.
 

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If it's fibrosis then caffeine should do the trick. I've heard caffeinated shampoo and other hair care products are big now.
 
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GorillaHead

GorillaHead

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If it's fibrosis then caffeine should do the trick. I've heard caffeinated shampoo and other hair care products are big now.


It might help but i wouldn't expect anything close to even half dramatic. I remember one scientist said caffeine was the cure and another hair professional scientist said it was the worst thing for your hair. I havent looked too much into it. So i cant comment
 
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How does histamine fit in this picture? It's an inflammatory mediator, so a parallel could be drawn between it and the prostaglandins. It's also can be viewed as a stress mediator. So something like a shampoo with caffeine, aspirin, ketoconazole, antihistamine could work. maybe Also prolactin is an overlooked aspect of MPB which is antagonistic to dopamine and vice versa.
 
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GorillaHead

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I'm speculating and extrapolating liver fibrosis put in permanent remission by caffeine to possible skin fibrosis.

i see. Well the thing with that is the cause if the hairloss is active. While in that liver scnario i am assuming
How does histamine fit in this picture? It's an inflammatory mediator, so a parallel could be drawn between it and the prostaglandins. It's also can be viewed as a stress mediator. So something like a shampoo with caffeine, aspirin, ketoconazole, antihistamine can/should work. Also prolactin is an overlooked aspect of MPB which is antagonistic to dopamine and vice versa.

Antihistamines could work. The concern is once u get off them things can come back two fold. Its the concern i have with dexamethasone right now. Histamine isnt always a reaction to something foreign. They are ways for the body to process its functions. Lots of studies have shown antihistamines lower androgens so as you can see histamines are mediators for more than just a reaction to pathogens. Very interesting stuff. I beleive asprin can work. Funny enough asprin can thin the skin with very strong prolonged use. The issue with asprin is finding the perfect dose. Prostaglandins may also be a factor as well. Well they def are but tuning them is a shot in the dark.

Ultimately id like to see way more research in baby hairlines. As i beleive the answer to solving all our baldness issues lies in a babies scalp
 
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i see. Well the thing with that is the cause if the hairloss is active. While in that liver scnario i am assuming


Antihistamines could work. The concern is once u get off them things can come back two fold. Its the concern i have with dexamethasone right now. Histamine isnt always a reaction to something foreign. They are ways for the body to process its functions. Lots of studies have shown antihistamines lower androgens so as you can see histamines are mediators for more than just a reaction to pathogens. Very interesting stuff. I beleive asprin can work. Funny enough asprin can thin the skin with very strong prolonged use. The issue with asprin is finding the perfect dose. Prostaglandins may also be a factor as well. Well they def are but tuning them is a shot in the dark.

Ultimately id like to see way more research in baby hairlines. As i believe the answer to solving all our baldness issues lies in a babies scalp
Interesting observation I made recently concerning dopamine/prolactin. Two of my male friends recently had the their first baby - both are boys. One of the friends I would describe as high dopamine/high testosterone alpha male type character - always witty, had many women prior to marriage, has great hair and his dad and grandpa have the same features and have great hair too. Other friend I would describe as low dopamine passive character with poor facial expressions, depressed appearance, has MPB in his late 20's. What is interesting the kid of the friend I described first already had great (!) hair pretty much at birth and the other is almost half a year old a barely has any hair. Another funny thing happened to the first guy. At his bachelor party he decided to try MDMA - so he tried it, 30 minutes passed and he had a very weird paranoid bad trip which lasted for two hours. My theory is that he already had high dopamine so more of it tipped over the edge and made him paranoid. We frequently see this in meth-, cocaine- and amphetamine overdose. Dopamine is also been linked to schizophrenia and mania also and lot of the drugs which are used to treat it act as dopamine antagonists. Mania can be described as dopaminergic in a lot of ways. Too much of a good thing is bad perhaps? What is interesting I would desribe myself as the second guy - had problems with depression, anhedonia, anxiety, mpb in mid 20's (both my grandpas had great hair) and when i did stimulants i felt "normal". My dopaminergic system is running low probably. So dopamine is king!
 
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GorillaHead

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I wonder if a caffeine/DMSO solution would help get it where it needs to go.

The thing is does caffeine really work. With most treatments out there. I would never really expect regrowth just maintnance. I think we should measure hair remedies by their ability to maintain and i know i am excluding a huge group of people but the reality is we need to take things ones step at a time if we are gonna success.
 

Diddleum

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I had a hair transplant which looks great. Hair from sides and back of my scalp put it my hairline. Looks great. Obviously there is a difference in the follicules in different parts of the head as they thrive in balding areas.

also microneedling and minoxidil - not sure which has regrown hair on my scalp. When I first started this you wound your scalp you can feel the blood pulsing into your scalp. It’s a cool throbbing feeling and you imagine all your follicules getting loads of blood flow.

after about 8 months of regular needling this pulsing doesn’t happen. I speculate that it’s because blood flow has permanently improved to my scalp so I don’t feel the pulsing. Maybe my blood vessels have widened so the throbbing isn’t necessary to respond to the wounding. Or maybe my scalp had just gotten used to that level of wounding and doesn’t react.

either way my hair has thickened and darkened. It’s actually been more effective on one side of my head than the other so I’m thicker on one side. But at 38 May hair looks better than in my twenties. Even the areas that were not transplanted to.

highly recommend needling and minoxidil regime.
 
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GorillaHead

GorillaHead

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I had a hair transplant which looks great. Hair from sides and back of my scalp put it my hairline. Looks great. Obviously there is a difference in the follicules in different parts of the head as they thrive in balding areas.

also microneedling and minoxidil - not sure which has regrown hair on my scalp. When I first started this you wound your scalp you can feel the blood pulsing into your scalp. It’s a cool throbbing feeling and you imagine all your follicules getting loads of blood flow.

after about 8 months of regular needling this pulsing doesn’t happen. I speculate that it’s because blood flow has permanently improved to my scalp so I don’t feel the pulsing. Maybe my blood vessels have widened so the throbbing isn’t necessary to respond to the wounding. Or maybe my scalp had just gotten used to that level of wounding and doesn’t react.

either way my hair has thickened and darkened. It’s actually been more effective on one side of my head than the other so I’m thicker on one side. But at 38 May hair looks better than in my twenties. Even the areas that were not transplanted to.

highly recommend needling and minoxidil regime.


Id imagine everytime you wound the fibrosis aka scar diminishes. Who knows tho.

only reason i didn't recommend minoxidil was because i am concerned that it does damage in the long run. I dont know but hey sounds like you are having great results and hopefully for years to come. For me i just to maintain.
 

Diddleum

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Id imagine everytime you wound the fibrosis aka scar diminishes. Who knows tho.

only reason i didn't recommend minoxidil was because i am concerned that it does damage in the long run. I dont know but hey sounds like you are having great results and hopefully for years to come. For me i just to maintain.
Yeah who knows. Hard to say exactly which is working but it’s FDA approved and loads of studies. I’ve been using it for over a year. No sides.

I needle at 1.5mm. Tempted to go deeper see if I can get that pulsing back.

here’s my thread on hair loss talk if it interests anyone. It has some pictures..
Dr Koray Erdogan - 3100 Grafts Hairline
 
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GorillaHead

GorillaHead

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Yeah who knows. Hard to say exactly which is working but it’s FDA approved and loads of studies. I’ve been using it for over a year. No sides.

I needle at 1.5mm. Tempted to go deeper see if I can get that pulsing back.

here’s my thread on hair loss talk if it interests anyone. It has some pictures..
Dr Koray Erdogan - 3100 Grafts Hairline

looks great dude! I am genuinely happy for you. By god people don't understand how much of a negative the lack of hair can be for many of us.
 

Diddleum

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looks great dude! I am genuinely happy for you. By god people don't understand how much of a negative the lack of hair can be for many of us.
Best thing I ever spent my money on. If only solving my low energy depression issues was as easy!
 

Vinny

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Among the raypeat community and in line with Danny Roddys theory on hair-loss. Balding is essentially fibrosis.

We know from biopsies that balding scalp has perifollicular fibrosis.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmedPerifollicular fibrosis: pathogenetic role in androgenetic ... - NCBI

Essentially the prognosis is hyperkeratinization. Collagen bundles dense up the scalp skin and result in harder skin that essentially suffocates hair follicles from their own blood flow. This is an epigenetic change as a result of inflammation.

Why women don’t bald as often as men do is clear and that’s due to aromatase. Now when I speak about aromatase it’s important not to think of aromatase and estrogen as synonymous.

It’s also important to understand that hormones in the skin are different than hormones in serum. They don’t always align with one another.

We know from a very powerful study that in a balding man the back of his head has higher levels of aromatase and in a women the front scalp has high levels of aromatase 4 fold. Androgenetic Alopecia in Women - ScienceDirect

Skin in men is very interesting because it has been proven that men have thicker skin then women. Male versus female skin: What dermatologists and cosmeticians should know

This is no doubt due to androgens. The positive is our skin tends to age better, however increased localized androgens will leads to overly dense skin.

Men who are fully bald have shiny heads because the skin is hardened and fibrotic. When I say hard I am not talking so hard it’s like rock. It’s harder than it was before.

What I am trying to lead up to is the fact that elastic softer skin is ideal for hair conditions to grow. We can see that in Frontal Fibrosing alopecia hair is almost completely destroyed. What’s interesting is antiandrogens have been shown to improve conditions of front fibrosing alopecia.
Clearly cause skin will slow down it’s fibrosis process.

Finasteride-mediated hair regrowth and reversal of atrophy in a patient with frontal fibrosing alopecia

Hair growth is about the balance between 5ar and aromatase. When men get older they tend to develop more body hair because there is higher levels of aromatase developing. Aromatase grows hair but not by itself it needs androgens to grow.

  • Body hair is essentially a balanced ratio of aromatase and androgens. ( young men are androgen dominant.). Women don’t experience body hair because they are aromatase dominant.
  • While male pattern baldness is a ratio of high androgens to very little aromatase. The scalp seems to be immune to the mild increase of serum aromatase older men experience it still locally has higher levels of androgens. That’s the biggest mystery.

It’s possible gravity has something to do with it or maybe the lack of vitamin D synthesis. Interestingly severity of scleroderma (skin fibrosis disease) is inversely correlated with vdr. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc › articles › PMC5042230Low vitamin D status in systemic sclerosis and the impact on ...

Vdr has direct action in androgen sensitivity. Not everyone benefits from vitamin D supplementation as not everyone has the same sensitivity and there are tons of polymorphism however, genes associated with vdr have been linked to baldness.

In rats that were sent to space for some odd reason their thin skinned out but what happened was their hair grew like crazy which is interesting because there is no gravity in space. news.softpedia.com › News › Science › Sci PryHair Grows Faster and Thicker in Space, Experiments Reveal

A shot in the dark we could say that gravity is necessary for thicker skin.

In a documented scenario of two twins one who took dutasteride and one who didn’t we can see the man who was on dutasteride his hair is perfect while his twin receded to like a Norwood 3. But let’s not take a look at the hair but rather their skin. The twin on dutasteride has rosier cheeks like a women! Why? Because he is on anti androgens and he has thinner skin now. We also can infer that the nose on the twin of the dutasteride user also has a slightly thinner less bulbous nose, again this is related to thinner skin.
See attached photo


Solutions and Why finasteride and dutasteride doesn’t always work.


Many people who get on finasteride find out that their hairloss hasn’t stopped falling out or their hair stays the same. They don’t see regrowth.

Now this is where I inject some bro science. Since scalp fibrosis is an epigenetic change induced by the body there is a system that works to change the scalp. The hair doesn’t just actually die because the skin is pushing on it. Rather hair follicle in these dense fibrotic conditions are told to die off with dht. That’s the signal to tell the hair to move out it’s time for some skin. So when you get on finasteride (inhibits 5ar2 and inhibits 5ar1 but significantly less) you are stopping one part of the process because 5ar2 isn’t really found in the skin. It’s in the follicle. Now when you get on dutasteride you tend to see way more success as shown by studies! people think it’s because you are inhibiting more dht! Yes that’s correct. The dht that’s found in the skin 5ar1 ! So now with duatsteride you are targeting two pathways to balding scalp.

You are stopping the signal that tells the hair to move and you are reversing the ***t condition of follicular fibrosis the hair is surrounded by.

The thing is if aromatase doesn’t increase sufficiently in the scalp skin what happens is testosterone will be the weaker androgen that will slowly cause fibrosis in the skin because it will stay in the scalp in high levels since 5ar is inhibited and aromatase enzymes are low. All about the ratio.

In the end it’s all about breaking fibrosis and inhibiting. The issue with using supplements like K2 for example to break down fibrosis is they essentially would be fighting a losing battle hormones are the main powerful signals in the body. The hormones in the scalp are inducing the fibrosis so no matter how much anti fibrosis supplements you take they aren’t strong enough to fight back an action that significantly much stronger. In fact supplementing may result in more testosterone only to create more fibrosis as you support the condition.


So what solutions do we have? (Maintenance only)


SKIN STRETCHING. will help with fibrosis.

Stretching Reduces Skin Thickness and Improves Subcutaneous Tissue Mobility in a Murine Model of Systemic Sclerosis

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pmc › articles › PMC4740347Standardized Scalp Massage Results in Increased Hair ...


This theoretically should work and many have found that it has. However the tedious amount of work and consistent work necessary to actually make a difference is realistically not ideal.


INDUCING AROMATASE LOCALLY

This is something I personally have been researching. Right now I just started on a dexamethasone topical treatment. Be warned that there could be unforeseen side effects and until I finish my experiment I have no idea this will work. Glucorticoids can be very dangerous.


But what’s great about dexamethasone it does two things. It increases sensitivity to vdr and it increase aromatase transcription.

https://eje.bioscientifica.com/downloadpdf/journals/eje/152/4/1520619.pdf

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov › pubmedDexamethasone enhances vitamin D-24-hydroxylase ... - NCBI

Dexamethasone also happens to do things like thin the skin like other glucocorticoids and their overuse tends to lead to redness something that may be similar to what happens with anti androgen use like the rosy cheeks I discussed above. I believe it’s moderate use and cycling the and tapering is use is necessary to avoid serious consequences. We don’t want to really reduce skin thickness as much as just makes less dense and hard.

also dexa would not work orally as it’s affects on serum hormones and glands would be detrimental to hair growth.

LOCAL ANDROGEN INHIBITION

Ketocanazole and miconazole are two anti fungal drugs that can inhibit steroid genesis. These drugs will reduce testosterone in the scalp.

www.sciencedirect.com › science › article › piiEconazole and miconazole inhibit steroidogenesis and disrupt ...


All these mentioned solutions may not be powerful enough to put an end to MPB but they offer ways to target the problem from different angles without inhibiting our beloved and very necessary serum androgens.

In the end the biggest question we are left with is what are all the possible causes for skin fibrosis. What are the triggers? Gravity ? Tension? Cortisol? PUFA apparently tends to shoot up in the body like physically can’t remember where I read this.
Man, it looks like you,ve figured it out! Awesome!
 

Attakai

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Dec 1, 2014
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Do you think it's possible for hair follicles that have long been inactive to start growing hair again?
 

tankasnowgod

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Jan 25, 2014
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8,131
Why women don’t bald as often as men do is clear and that’s due to aromatase.

I don't think this is clear in the slightest. There are several differences between women and men, and not just hormonal. Roddy has put forth the idea that higher levels of progesterone are what protect women from hair loss more so than men. Haidut has also pointed out that the structure of finasteride and dutasteride have a similar structure to progesterone, and that when they do work, it's due to the mimicing the effects of progesterone. Women with thinning hair will also get very think hair during pregnancy, when progesterone levels are very high.

Beyond hormones, accumulation of iron could also be a factor. Hair loss is one common symptom of Hemochromatosis.
 

homyak

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Joined
Sep 8, 2019
Messages
48
In fact supplementing may result in more testosterone only to create more fibrosis as you support the condition.

I began taking DHEA and Pregnenolone about 2 months ago and now my scalp hair is significantly thinner, but oddly enough my facial hair is growing much thicker and faster.
 

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