| Author | Message | ||
     Anonymous |
Tom, I had a question about the immune system and hair loss. There is a theory out there that claims hair loss could be cause by an autoimmune deficiency of some sort and the body begins to recognize weak/dying hair as a foreign agent and thus rejects it. This is what the makers of Tymuskin will try to tell you, although I think that company is full of crap. However, their explanation makes some sense to me. So I guess my question is, if you strengthen your immune system would this help? It seems that if you increase the amount of T cells in your body that this would promote hair rejection and cause more hair loss, not less. What do you think? | ||
| Tom Hagerty |
Anonymous: A relatively rare type of hair loss, alopecia areata, is suspected of being caused by a person's own antibodies "attacking" the hair follicles. In other words alopecia areata is considered by many dermatologists as an autoimmune disease. Recently there has been speculation that male pattern baldness may have a autoimmune component. Skin biopsies have shown that some micro-inflammation is present around shrunken (miniaturized) follicles. Whenever there is inflammation, the lymphatic system and therefore the immune system is involved. It's hard to establish a cause and effect relationship between inflammation, immune system involvement, and hair loss though. Thymuskin says in an overly simplified statement: "The human body regards the hair follicles as something growing too fast, so it alerts white blood cells, leukocytes, to attack your hair follicles (which it considers to be foreign invaders). The hair follicles are so damaged by the attack of the leukocytes that they release the hair strands faster than you can replace them." This is comic book, pseudoscientific writing - or rather advertising copy. Thymuskin also says that their product has proven effective for 67% of men and 95% of women. Do you believe this? On thing is almost certain though: scalp inflammation (micro-inflammation around the hair follicles) leads to a greater vulnerability of the follicles to DHT. "So I guess my question is, if you strengthen your immune system would this help?" It's always good to have a strong immune system, but I don't know if this has much of an impact on hair loss. There are so many biochemical variables involved in hair loss that it's hard to focus on a single silver bullet to solve the problem. | ||
| Anonymous |
My dad has all his hair and as long as i've been alive (18 years) he has never been sick, the only time he got sick was because he had a flu injection... | ||
| Anonymous |
Tom, what is a good shapoo to reduce scalp inflamation? | ||
| pete |
"what is a good shapoo to reduce scalp inflamation?" Look for shampoos that contain Piroctone olamine and alternate with a baby shampoo. |
