| Author | Message | ||
     jpj |
In a little over a year of researchin' baldness on the net, Ive formulated opinions on what a young guy could do to combat it. This is what I think/have found. Baldness is multigenic (there have been 4 baldness genes discovered), and can come from either the mother's side or the father's side. Although the variant of the androgen receptor gene that German researchers recently found, comes from your mother's side. Baldness looks like this biologically. Androgen receptors on your dermal papilla have male hormone (usually DHT) bind with receptor sites and afterwards, the dermal papilla 'reads' the hormone and activates genetic instructions in its own DNA. These instructions are to release growth inhibitors to the rest of the follicle cells. That would include the root sheath, keratinocyte, epilitheal, etc. Experiments have proven that this happens when these cells are cultured in collagen matrixes. After a while of this.....somehow the immune system begins to see the follicle as a foreign body and tries to kill it. The immune system releases superoxides and other chemical growth inhibitors to the follicle area. The immune system's biggest damage appears to be to the microcapillaries that feed your hair blood. The hair gets less blood (and therefore nutrition and growth factors in the same blood). The skin around the follicle and follicle itself ages badly after years of immuno attack (oxidative stress is the main reason we age at the cellular level). This is why old bald men usually have scalps with liver spots, ugly yellowish, thick-looking skin thats "aged" looking. Because its been aged prematurely. The immune attack pushes up on the follicle through "streamers" being formed under the follicles in the lymphatic tissue under them. It inhibits the follicle from being able to move back down at the end of telogen phase to the beginning of anangen phase. If it cant "go deep", it will have a hard time re-enlarging and creating a big, healthy anagen hair shaft. The eventual result of this is vellus hair thats not visible unless you look very close all over the head and after that.....fibrosis, a "shiny" baldness in which a layer of fat under the skin is lost and the scalp is devoid even of vellus hairs. Years after that.....the old, aged, scalp with the liver spots, etc. All of that above is the standard medical establishment view of baldness. What do I propose to do to fight it? First, Id use the free option. I'd do Tom's scalp exercise. Twice a day. Once in the morn and once at night. While you shower or on the computer, etc. It will make your face look young and eliminate forehead wrinkles and darken your hair. I guarantee that. I like the cost too, free. If you can catch baldness as its just starting.....I'd use a topical androgen receptor blocker first chemically. Blocking the androgen receptors is even more important than inhibiting scalp DHT. The hairs androgen receptors can (Washenik) perhaps read other male hormone "as DHT" and transcript it the same way. Fluridil, RU58841, topical spironolactone are the three main receptor blockers. Spiro has the most science backing it up. You can read about it here http://minoxidil.com/topical.htm. Spiro is only really active for about 8 hours and gets harmelessly changed into a much weaker anti-androgen. Id advise using spiro because of the body of research behind it over the others. Id apply it after the morning shower, after work, before bed. Your hair's androgen receptors would see very little DHT. Id further cut the whole amount of DHT in my skin (I believe with many others that its the SKIN level of DHT thats most important, your hair follicles have both types of alpha-five reductase enyzmes (type 1 and 2) RIGHT THERE IN THE FOLLICLE). Most of the DHT that gets in androgen receptors is produced right there at the follicle and the scalp skin, and perhaps sebaceous glands around it. Not the blood. However, its pretty certain that some blood DHT does get in the follicle. Propecia, or finasteride blocks 65% of blood DHT and 38% of skin DHT. Buy it on the internet in the form of proscar and cut the pills in fifths. Its much cheaper than the 50+dollars you'll spend on a prescription. Merk really sticks it to us on this drug. They proboably sell you that at about 10 times cost. Screw em'. So now youve cut blood DHT by about 65% and scalp DHT by about 40% and youve blocked your androgen receptors. You'll be experiencing an intitial "shed" from the body shock of these for a few months, and then get a big bounceback of new hair growth in the ensuing time. Now take a look at your frontal scalp...... Is your scalp skin pinkinsh? If it is, that proboably inflammation from the immuno attack. That has to be fought. Nizoral shampoo helps counteract a few factors of the immuno attack and helps block a few DHT pathways. Use it twice a week. Leave in for 2 minutes, rinse in cold water. Consider one of the products that are SuperoxideDismutases or S.O.D's: Tricomin, Folligen, American Crew thinning hair serum, Prox-N (drproctor.com), or NANO shampoo (drproctor.com). These all contain copper peptides which are Superoxidedismutases and help counteract superoxides the body sends at the follicle. They ALL help with inflammation BIG TIME. They will turn that pink scalp back to its original color. Follow the directions on the container of the SOD prodcut you choose. I personally think if I was just beginning to thin, I'd try Proctors shampoo first. Its used 2-4 times a week, left in for 2 minutes. He is proboably the foremost hair expert in the world, is a PHd Pharmacologist and Dermatologist. So he knows his stuff. If youre inflammation has gone on a few years.....you might forget the shampoo and go with one of the other topicals. All can be used right after the shower on a damp head except folligen. You can also lower the amount of DHT in your skin/blood by your diet. The Japanese used to bald less frequently than they do in Post-WWII Japan. They have changed their diet. When you eat alot of sugary simple carbohydrates, you make less of a certain protien in the blood called globulin. Is called a "sex-BINDING" hormone. It, in your blood, BINDS with testosterone chemically, this makes it (the testosterone) unable to change into DHT when it meets up with and alpha-five redcutase enzyme in the skin or blood tissue (alpha five is what changes the T into DHT, the demon molecule if youre a head hair). Lowering pasta's, white breads, excessive sugars will put more globulin in your blood. This equals less DHT. Eating veggies and fruits for calories instead of white breads, pasta, stuffing's, etc will help here. Also the Japanese ate much more soy product back in the day. Soy isoflavones in digestion in about a third of a population see some intestinal enzymes produce a chemical called equol. Equol does about the same thing globulin does......it binds DHT, making it not fit in androgen receptors. One soy isoflavone, genistien, is associated with seeing about 40% less androgen receptors being made (guess what? bald men typically have more androgen receptors on their dermal papillas that non-baldning men. The most being in the temple area, the area that balds first usually. This is associated with the 4th baldness gene to be discovered, a variant of the androgen receptor gene that comes from mammma). Vitamin b6 also seems to see less production of androgen receptors. Wheat bread and oatmeal are excellent sources of b6. Third reason in Japanese diet that sees earlier onset of baldness in my opinion is consumption of more saturated animal fats. Eating these makes your skin a little more oily. Oil glands are invigorated to higher activity by various testosterones. Higher testosterone levels make more DHT when they combine with alpha five reductase enzyemes, the makers of DHT. Fatty red meat and milk seem to be the leading culprits. Drink soy milk instead of cow's milk or at least drink 1% milkfat cow milk instead of whole milk. Skim would be better still. Cut back on greasy burgers and opt for the leanest cuts of red meat when you eat it. Opt for fish, fowl, venison, lean pork, leanest red meat you can find, etc. Lets review. Scalp Excercise, Topical sprio, propecia (generic), Nizoral 2X a week. Additionally perhaps NANO shampoo 2-4 times a week or a topical SOD product. Initially thats only one topical, two different shampoos rotated, and an internal. Not much trouble at all. If NANO shampoo is too expensive for you (I really think Proctor overprices all his stuff to be honest), Folligen is a pretty cheap topical that is only supposed to be used every other day. That would be two topical products, one shampoo, one internal, an excercise. Diet in review.....more soy, less burgers and milk, less pasta, white breads, sugars. More veggies and fruits. Lean meats, some soy isoflavones (various sources---soy milk, soy protien shakes, isoflavone capsules, etc.). Pretty easy regimine there......you may not "grow back" a ton of what was lost....but I bet you will keep what you have for a couple of decades. A gene cure or cloning will surely be available by that time. Thats my advice in full. By the way, on minoxidil....yes I know it grows more hair than anything else, even in the front. If youre gonna do it, definitely do it with spiro and propecia. Minoxidil "overcomes" your MPB despite the degeneration DHT and oxides are doing to the philosebaceous unit. Youve got to stop the root cause. Dr. Klein at phsycianshairgrowith, Dr. Lee at minoxidil.com, hairmedics.com sell formulations of minox mixed with spiro. Remember, whats gained with minox has to be maintained with minox. ALL regrown hair with minox will fall upon stoppage despite whatever else youre using. In fact, for a few months, even some hair you ADJACENT to minox-regenerated hair becomes "dependent" on it and will fall also before coming back on its own. | ||
| jpj |
NOW. TO STOP ANYONE ELSE FROM TELLING YOU MPB IS NOT GENETIC> Im going to post a little infor proving to you that the ENTIRE MEDICAL ESTABLISHMENT is not "wrong" on baldness. Look at this http://www.propecia.co.nz/twins_study.asp those are TWINS. One took propecia, cut his scalp DHT 38% and one didnt. See who GREW BACK some hair? Pictures worth a thousand words isnt it? http://www.sitri.it/hamilton/Hamilton.html . Here is a woman who is a twin of another woman. She wanted to be a man, she shot herself up with testosteorone and quickly went bald in the MPB fasion. Her pic is here http://www.oprah.com/tows/slide/200509/20050916/slide_20050916_107.jhtml . Women are protected from MPB by the fact that they only make one tenth the testosterone a man makes on average. They also have lost of various estrogens in their blood and skin that pre-emptively bind with their androgen receptors, not allowing the miniscule amount of DHT they make bind with them instead. Here is a pic of that now balding woman with her TWIN sister that she no longer even resembles unless you look close http://www.oprah.com/tows/slide/200509/20050916/slide_20050916_106.jhtml . Yup, those are twins, the woman with the long hair, and the BALD woman with the short hair dressed like a man are both female twins. Testosterone have anything to do with baldness boys? http://www.cjad.com/content/content_editable/personality_pages/TheChemistryofBal dness.pdf Read that short little article concerning Dr. James Hamilton' experiments with castrates and baldness. I'll summarize for you, Dr. Hamilton was researching effects of castration on males interviewed a castrate in a mental hospital in 1942 (the castrated mental patients in some places back then to calm em' down). His TWIN brother visits. Guess what? His twin brother was bald, the patient NOT bald. Dr. Hamilton was intrigued and got permission to inject the patient with testosterone for a time. The patient eventually went as bald as his brother did. Dr. Hamilton studied 104 castrated inmates http://www.sitri.it/hamilton/Hamilton.html and that show that when they were injected with testosterone that they went bald unless they were castrated pre-puberty (more on that in a sec) unless they had no history of baldness in their family and seen no change (more on that in a sec). You see some change in hair happens in puberty when big amounts of androgen hit the hair for the first time. Hamilton noticed that pre-pubescent castrates didnt go bald with testosterone injections even if they had bald dads and grandads. If they had no baldness in their families, even if they were castrated in early adulthood, thus AFER puberty, they STILL would not lose hair either. They didnt carry baldness genes. DHT does not affect their hair like it affects ours. http://entimg.msn.com/i/150/ce/0304/ChrisPenn_150x208.jpg . The recently deceased actor Chris Penn was 310 lbs. when he passed away. You can see by that pic that he has no recession whatsoever. He no doubt liked to eat alot. Im pretty sure he liked to eat all the things like pasta, sugars, red meat, ice cream that WE ALL DO. It didnt affect his hair, because even at the age of 40 he had no recession at all. He, like his brother (and very good actor whatever you feel about his political convictions) Sean apparantly dont have baldness genes. Their hair is what Bryan Shelton has called "androgen-neutral". Gabe, a poster at HL-R, has noted that George Lucas, has the same hairline he had in his twenties. Its just grey now, just as thick. He is obviously getting heavy too, but has no hairloss-genes. Dutasteride, which inbhibits alpha-five redcutase type one and two enzymes, and cuts scalp levels of DHT by 58% in six months grows hair http://www.hairlosstalk.com/newsletter/article96.htm There is a pic and graph for all to see. I personally think its the immune-response after plenty of DHT transcription that really "kills" your hair to be honest. Minxodil, copper peptides apparently help either overcome (minox) or counteract (peptides) the immuno response. Cyclosporin, the powerful organ-rejection drug and immunosuppressant, is 80% effective in baldness patients. It not prescribed because its VERY dangerous. You'll have an immune system like an AIDS patient if you use this long term kids. Dont try it. It just shuts the immune system thats attacking your hair pretty much down. Even people who apparently dont carry baldness genes exhibit what the L'Oreal and Alpecin researchers have noted as the testosterone-drive ageing of the hair. Look at these female twins (again one wants to be a man and has injected herself with mucho testosterone) http://www.oprah.com/tows/slide/200509/20050916/slide_20050916_102.jhtml. In other pics like this http://www.oprah.com/tows/slide/200509/20050916/slide_20050916_103.jhtml you can see that she has aged her hair, neck, grown beard hair with testosterone. Her skin looks older than her sis too (she's still a woman, no sex change operation yet). I put this info behind my post on baldness in general to immunize you (the reader) to sad theories out there on the net about shampoo, sunlinght, hair cutting, lack of sunlight, combing, galea tension, etc. being the CAUSE of androgenic alopecia. Its whats going on under the skin that makes you go bald, not whats happening on top of it. The ENTIRE medical establishment is not wrong on baldness. They are right. Cloning or gene therpaies are on the way, but it may be 5, 10-20 years before they are here. Prevention is the best we have until that comes. I wish I knew all of this fifteen years ago, I'd have no recession at all in my opinion. I have hair, but receeded temples. Im keeping it by following the advice I outilined in the previous post. You can keep yours too. Good luck J | ||
| Anonymous |
Okay, I have a couple gripes. First, you can't think everything is absolute proof. A picture of 2 twins. One with more hair than the other. One supposedly took Propecia. No before pictures. Why do I get the feeling that if the suggested treatment were something diffrent, no before pics would matter? Twin females. One has hair, one wanted to be a man. She shot herself up with testosterone and lost her hair. Is it possible that womens hair is more sensetive to androgens. Maybe artificial test is inferior in the body and causes reactions. Wouln't be the first time that synthesized stuff is not as good as the real deal. Matter of fact, were still waiting for the first time the artificials are better. Lastly, a picture of some fat guy with hair. So what. He obviously has no hair loss. Does that mean that eating can't exacerbate balding? Nor things like stress? How do we explain the afformentioned Japanese? Are they evolving at 1000 times the pace of everybody else? Can we admit that there are obviously more than genetic factors to hair loss? Or wait, maybe because you say so, we should all jump like lemmings. | ||
| jpj |
"First, you cant think everything is absolute proof"- In the world of biology my friend, few things get "absolutely proven". Deductions based on a preponderance of evidence has to be made. Chemical and cellular phenomena in vivo are supersmall....remember that. Anonymous wrote "a picture of 2 twins. ONe with more hair than the other. One supposedly took Propecia. No before pictures." Let me get this straight, your saying DHT doesnt have anything to do with baldness, correct? Propecia is a DHT inhibitor, so saying it doesnt work is pretty muc asserting that. They are TWINS. HELLO? Their hair before the drug on one would have been the same. "Twin females. One has hair, one wanted to be a man. She shot herself up with testostserone and lost her hair. IS it possible that womens hair is more sensitive to androgens. Maybe artificial tests is inferior in the body and causes reactions"----Let me dissect this for you. "Womens hair more sensitive to androgens"---Im sure an evolutionary anthropologists or a biologist would have a field day with that....ummmmm no. Women carry baldness genes, but are not affected by them because they only make a tenth the testosterone you do. Also estrogen and other forms of estrogen bind with androgen receptors so the little DHT they are able to make doesnt get to. "Maybe artificial test is inferior in the body and causes reactions"----Steroids cause alot of bodybuilders to go bald very fast, female body builders who take steroids in many cases lose hair also. Old Olympic footage from the early 80's will show you Soviet Bloc female athletes who have thin, receeding hair. Why? Steroids, which artificially make more male hormone. If you dont have baldness genes though, steroids wont affect your hair. "Wouldnt be the first time the synthesized stuff is not as good as the real deal" ---Testosterone is a chemical compound. Chemistry. Water is a chemical compound. Its H20. The water in your body is H20. No differences. Testosterone injections are chemically the same as your balls make. "Lastly, a picture of some fat guy (Chris Penn, you dumbass) with hair. So what. He obviously hasa no hair loss. Does that mean eating can't exacerbate balding?" ......."How do we explain the afformentioned Japaneses?" "Are they evolving at 1000 times the pace of everybody else?" In people who dont have MPB genes, they will not bald no matter how bad their diet is. Chris Penn's hair obviously was NOT sensitive to DHT, PERIOD. The Japanese increasing rates of hairloss was thouroughly explained in my second post. They are not evolving faster than anyone else. Their pre-WWII diet had plenty of soy, less saturated fat, plenty of veggies, and less sugars and simple carbohydrates which led to the prodcution of more sex-binding hormone globulin which binds DHT. Re-read the info on why that stuff helps make less DHT available to hair follicles androgen receptors. "Can we admit that there are obvioulsy more than genetic factors to hair loss"? NO because there are not more than genetic factors to baldness. My dad is balding, my dads brother has a FULL HEAD OF HAIR. They both eat the standard American diet, both shampoo, both have happy marriages and lives. My dad is balding because he has some of the 4 known baldness-genes. There are proboably 1-3 more genes that affect baldness. Thats it. I hope EVERYONE that reads this understands that I REALLY think that salesguys from transplant mills, wig dealers, snake oil products troll forums, usually as "anonymous" posters trying to spread as much disinformation as possible about baldness. If they can get you to •••• up for just 5 years or so.......you'll lose enough hair in that amount of time to make you a potential mark for their business, and they know it. They may act like they are unknowing newbies, but in the business of hairloss, no tactic is too low for the salesscum to go. | ||
| Gabe |
Anonymous, Basically hair loss is genetic! But at the same time if you’re hair genes are bad, having a bad diet will only make it worse! Also the use of a wrong shampoos or abuse of you’re hair will bring it down faster! The Japanese maybe never hade strong hair genes and since that western diet came in results of that showed up! | ||
| Gabe |
And yeah here is why Soya is good * The complete protein is an important source of * protein for the muscle development. * Soy may help to reduce acnes significantly. * Soy may reduce skin damage caused by the sun. * Soy helps to maintain bone calcium density. * Soy isoflavones are an excellent source of antioxidants for the human body and may protect girls later in their life against breast cancer. Note : "may protect girls later in their life against breast cancer." what’s up with that? | ||
| Gabe |
IGNORE THE PREVIOUS POST! damn hehe sorry it ended up on the wrong thread :P Tom fix it if you can! but be careful don't delete the hole thread! | ||
| oscar the grunge |
I have learned much from jpj's and your nemesis's informative postings. ;) | ||
| 1979 |
JPG: Just a suggestion but your points are all lost because you posts are lengthy ramblings and are far too frequent. You may have some good ideas but your obsessive posting tends to take away from them. | ||
| jpj |
1979, This thread was a kind of "last post" or was intended to be. I wanted to get what I'd do if I was 20 and thinning again out there for young guys to see. Ive researched hair for over a year now....and know what to expect as far as future developmental treatments are concerned. Hint: there will never be a pill to "cure" your hair. It simply cannot work that way. My main objective now is to warn others about the dangers of early transplantation with pictures like this http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/102824.jpg . And warn others about wig scammers like hairclub. I'd advise all who are losing the battle with hair to buzz it short. If you get surgery, some day you will wish you could just buzz it short. | ||
| michael |
I see many asians in my country and more then half of them is getting bald in the midlle 30 or 40ties. Asians have just as bed genes as caucasians in therms of hair genetic. Only difference is the level of traditional soy consumption in their countries, which is very high and protects them from getting bald...this is what I noticed | ||
| jpj |
Yup michael, I made that point in my first two posts of this thread. High soy consumption, elimination of saturated animal fats, and low sugar complex carb intake (its negative effect on globulin sex binding hormone production) can proboably save men from baldness even if they genetically inherit it for a long while. However, the Japanese still dont bald as much as we do, even now. They have better hair genes than us. I see em' every day. | ||
| Wondering |
JPJ: "In fact, for a few months, even some hair you ADJACENT to minox-regenerated hair becomes "dependent" on it and will fall also before coming back on its own." What do you mean by this. That if I were to cover my whole scalp with minox every day for 7 months and then suddenly stop, that ALL my hair would first fall out before it comes back again? =/ Because I have diffuse thinning and I put minox all over my scalp. | ||
| jpj |
Proboably not all of it. However, EVERYTHING you regrew with it, will need to be sustained with minoxidil. There has been some speculation that the oxides Proctor puts in NANO and Prox-N might keep some minoxidil-regrown hair, but thats all that is....speculation. There is a noticed "bounce" effect when stopping minox. You lose a little more hair than you regrew, but it comes back. Luckily, minox at 5 bucks a month is the cheapest med out there. | ||
| Wondering |
ok, thanks for the advice, I dont know anything about spiro before. I wonder If you can buy it at the pharmacy here in sweden Do u know a good page that ships spiro to foreign countries jpj? | ||
| jpj |
http://minoxidil.com/ http://www.physicianshairgrowth.com/index.php https://secure.vaultserver.com/s/hairmedics/product_info.php?products_id=29 http://www.anagen.net/spiroin.htm genhair.com sells it pretty cheap, but I dont know if their version is scented or not. I dont know about hairmedics version either. It smells bad if it doesnt have something mixed with it. I know alot of guys buy the spiro pills (the spiro patent has LONG since run out---thats why you dont see drug companies pumping it) and mix up a topical themselves (proboably with prop. glycol). I wonder if any of the guys over at hairlosshelp.com who mix their own topicals have some home formulas that add something to mask the smell or give it a citrusy scent (Dr.Kleins forumla supposedly smells like a citrus cologne). | ||
| Anonymous |
jpj, Wow! It's great to get a basic summary of everything regarding hair loss in one place. I have a couple of questions for you. I've been thinning all over, but mainly on the crown for about 9 months now. For the past 5 months I've been on 1.25 mg Proscar. I've been doing the S.E. twice a day for 10 minutes, taking Brewer's Yeast, Flax Seed capsules, and a multi-vitamin. For about 3 months I've been using Nizoral 1% every 3 to 4 days. I wash my hair every other day. I don't wet my hair on the off days. On the days I don't use Nizoral, I was using Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo or an Emu Oil Shampoo. During the third or fourth month my shedding seemed to increase and then suddenly slowed down. I thought the proscar was finally working. After reading your post, I ordered the American Crew thinning hair products: shampoo, conditioner, serum, and spray. All contain the copper peptides you mentioned in your post. I've been using them for about 3 weeks now. I'm still shampooing every other day, but have swapped out the j&j baby shampoo and emu shampoo for the american crew products. I use the spray in the mornings and the serum at night. Within the past week, though, it seems as if my shedding has increased again. Is it possible that this is caused by the new products? How would you recommend that I use the spray and serum seeing as how I only wash my hair every other day (and don't get it wet on the off days)? Is it bad to leave the serum on over night and then not wash it off in the morning? Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated. I was really excited that the shedding seemed to be decreasing, but now I'm getting depressed again. Thanks, Kelly |
