3alpha-hydroxysteroid reductase and hair loss - a theory from Tressless

[feelsbad]

Yesterday, joapassos4444, a member of the subreddit Tressless, posted an interesting theory positing that the reason for baldness is low levels of the enzyme 3alpha-hydroxysteroid, which is an enzyme that converts DHT to androstanidol. Androstanidol is known to bind to hair and promote hair growth. There is much more to it than that, but that is my brief summary of his post.

I have no scientific background, but it is interesting and seems well-researched. I thought we could discuss.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tressless/comments/mx6ncc

 

[fellow1]

What about the fact that ALL SSRI usually upregulating 3α-HSD. And SSRI users prone to losing hair.

Both fluoxetine and paroxetine also affected the conversion of DHT to androstanediol whereas fluoxetine further affected conversion of androstanediol to androsterone

Various antidepressants, including the SSRIs fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, sertraline, and paroxetine, the SNRI venlafaxine, and mirtazapine, have been found to activate certain 3α-HSD enzymes

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/96/23/13512.full.pdf

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

That's a very high level post for post number one! Welcome.

What about the fact that ALL SSRI usually upregulating 3α-HSD. And SSRI users prone to losing hair.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/96/23/13512.full.pdf[/URL

http://

 

[BetaBoy]

can someone give a summary not sure I have the will power to read an r/tressless broscience theory of this length.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

can someone give a summary not sure I have the will power to read an r/tressless broscience theory of this length.

Hmm. It's not so much DHT that causes hair loss as it is the lacking of enough amounts of created DHT to be converted into the hair-friendly anabolic steroid,

Androstenedione.​

This substance has similar binding ability to DHT and can occupy T-receptors without the incipient and accumulative damage caused by DHT in moderate amounts to high amounts. This explains why such varying doses of reductase inhibitors can have all but identical effects on hair regrowth/maintenance. Using a couple of substances that I am not familiar with but which are apparently widely known in body building circles, theoretically one might be able to manipulate towards higher levels of Androstenedione and also maintain any beneficial psychological and health effects of DHT in human males.

 

[BetaBoy]

Hmm. It's not so much DHT that causes hair loss as it is the lacking of enough amounts of created DHT to be converted into the hair-friendly anabolic steroid,

Androstenedione.​

This substance has similar binding ability to DHT and can occupy T-receptors without the incipient and accumulative damage caused by DHT in moderate amounts to high amounts. This explains why such varying doses of reductase inhibitors can have all but identical effects on hair regrowth/maintenance. Using a couple of substances that I am not familiar with but which are apparently widely known in body building circles, theoretically one might be able to manipulate towards higher levels of Androstenedione and also maintain any beneficial psychological and health effects of DHT in human males.

So what you are saying is that there must be many body builders out there rocking full juvenile hair density after abusing this magic substance?

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

So what you are saying is that there must be many body builders out there rocking full juvenile hair density after abusing this magic substance?

Not me but I find it to be a fairly coherent example of trying to fill in some of the gaps that might account for psychological effects from reductase inhibitors that could be persistent. I continue to believe that most of the sides related to finasteride are of placebo-origin. As DHT literally seems to be an inessential hormone for both males and females apart from sexual differentiation as a fetus and then the initiation of secondary body hair, it seems very unlikely to me that it would cause serious, persistent sexual or psychological sides but I can't even prove that either RI does anything. All I know is my hair stopped falling out so much but I never saw any regrowth. Hormonal meds are like magic in the sense that they can do these amazing things but we remain limited in knowing exactly how.

My inherent belief is that scalp and beard hair are essentially hard-wired secondary sexual characteristics that are all but impossible to change without hormonal intervention and with already-induced beard hair growth, all but impossible to stop short of yanking, burning and electrolysing it. A lot of this issue seems further hard-wired in peoples whose descendants are European or Semitic and ran rampant in the Mediterranean Sea area essentially forever. Both Muslims and many Christians have actually held beliefs that it is a sin to alter our hair above the neck either by cutting or shaving or by adopting or trying to adopt the styling associated with the other gender. So, no long hair for males and no cutting of hair for females and certainly no cutting of beards for certain groups.

This is all much harder than we think to figure out because if you change one thing, then you change others and it might be a lot like whack-a-mole. I think that even having the ability to grow a beard, even beyond the hormonal effects, might make hair regrowth much more difficult due to signalling between follicles and movement of bacteria and yeast and dermatitis seems to me almost certainly to present clues as to how to figure all of this out. But one way in which body builders and MtF's resemble each other is in their attempts to implement stacks with various substances that in many ways work in different directions. AA medications are like this but we tend to have a preference for overly-complex solutions. Who says baldness isn't related to a whole host of overlooked benefits. I am more than willing to bet that baldness is associated with increased male fertility and it might be associated with larger genitalia in general. Of course, we have no studies but why wouldn't baldness be related to increased androgenization and "male" fitness overall?

 

[pegasus2]

Bless you @yadonkey for taking the time to call out this bs. I read a few paragraphs and couldn't even be bothered. I just don't have time for asinine theories that completely ignore facts that have been established for decades. Clearly DHT isn't everything, but if your theory relies on ignoring all the evidence behind DHT then I'm not going to waste my time. These theories all have one thing in common, they are created by people who only read recent studies and never took the time to read the old studies that established DHT theory, the studies that have convinced every researcher in the field that the AR and DHT are the first cause of baldness. Prolactin is a very promising candidate for the second causative hormone involved, but this still has to be proven.

 

[Roeysdomi]

Bless you @yadonkey for taking the time to call out this bs. I read a few paragraphs and couldn't even be bothered. I just don't have time for asinine theories that completely ignore facts that have been established for decades. Clearly DHT isn't everything, but if your theory relies on ignoring all the evidence behind DHT then I'm not going to waste my time. These theories all have one thing in common, they are created by people who only read recent studies and never took the time to read the old studies that established DHT theory, the studies that have convinced every researcher in the field that the AR and DHT are the first cause of baldness. Prolactin is a very promising candidate for the second causative hormone involved, but this still has to be proven.

I been suspecious while reading the post the same as you , but at the end its actually make sense . Read it , very intresting

 

[pegasus2]

I been suspecious while reading the post the same as you , but at the end its actually make sense . Read it , very intresting

The difference between bald scalp and non-bald scalp isn't the level of 3a HSD it's the number of androgen receptors. This angle is covered by anti-androgens thus this conversation gets us nowhere.

 

[Armando Jose]

The difference between bald scalp and non-bald scalp isn't the level of 3a HSD it's the number of androgen receptors

In a 4-8 years old scalp, are different the number of androgen receptors in crown and sides?
Probably don't.

BTW the theory of joapassos4444 is a reading worth, but don´t define exactly why there is a different amount of the enzime in different areas of scalp, thought point at the inflammation ....

 

[pegasus2]

In a 4-8 years old scalp, are different the number of androgen receptors in crown and sides?
Probably don't.

BTW the theory of joapassos4444 is a reading worth, but don´t define exactly why there is a different amount of the enzime in different areas of scalp, thought point at the inflammation ....

4-8 year olds don't have dht so it doesn't matter how many androgen receptors they have nor their sensitivity. I don't care to debate this though, the anti-dht theory crowd will never be happy. They deny what's right in front of them.

 

[Armando Jose]

4-8 year olds don't have dht

Half true
No dht-sebum in fronthead but they have sebum and DHT in scalp hairs.
Another knowledge piece lost in papers ...

Unusual cholesterol esters in the sebum of young children - PubMed

Cholesterol esters (CE) having fatty acids of more than 18 carbons are a prominent feature of fetal skin surface lipid (vernix caseosa), but are a minor component of adult lipid. The difference may be related to the fact that fetal sebaceous glands generally synthesize little lipid. If so, it...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Pls_NW-1]

Lol

 

[Armando Jose]

https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022-202X(15)48365-4

 

[BetaBoy]

sales are slow...

So I stumbled upon 3alpha-hydroxysteroid when researching about procyanidin B2, wich I believe is the most powerfull treatment to Androgenetic Alopecia, but for some obscure reason has not been enough researched or studied (it is natural and not patentable), even though an oral study demonstrated 125% REGROW in Androgenetic Alopecia patients (the study had 250 people, and there were zero side effects, and Procyanidin B2 is a natural flavonoid that is very good for the heart and arteries as well as liver, lungs and kidneys, skin and hair). They too missed the link between Procyanidin B2 and 3alpha-hydroxysteroid reductase in the study.

Here is the study if anyone wants to dig a bit (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5775114/).

View attachment 160956

discussed here...

Applemets Hair - Nutraceutic Powered By Italian University Of Naples | HairLossTalk Forums

tested here...

AppleMets Annurmets a base di mela annurca

su questo punto non c'è stato più nessun aggiornamento "ufficiale"? Anche a me ha risposto come sopra e tranquillizzato...secondo me era giusto andare sino in fondo.

calvizie.net

View attachment 160957

2015 research/hype

Can these Technion students cure baldness? | The Times of Israel

Team:Technion Israel/Project/Overview - 2015.igem.org

f*****g applemets and procyanidin b2, I remember this scam cos I actually believed the hype and ordered some and then it later came out that the authors of the study misappropriated patient result photos from other studies as their own smh

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

No its not, half the science is wrong and he's coming to conclusions without providing any proof that his claims are true. It's fiction.

For instance he also claims when hairs are transplanted into bald areas other (not transplanted hairs) start growing besides the graft (they don't) and claims this is due to qoroum sensing... which it isn't.

An example of Qoroum sensing is when you pluck a follicle and it sends signals to surrounding ones to grow. Putting a graft in the scalp does not have the same effect and theres no evidence that it does.. yet he's decided thats a fact and hasn't cited anything.

He does it constantly throughout. Anyone reading this and giving it a modicum of legitimacy is wasting their time

Rob Winter mentions that transplanted plugs do in fact engage in cross-talk and that this might account for better survival rates of larger grafts on perfecthairhealth.com. You can look at his posts on microneedling and transplants that mention the hair plucking studies.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I assume you mean Rob English? from perfecthairhealth. I don't put any faith in what Rob English says lol. I'd rather listen to an actual credible researcher in the field like Maksim Plikus.. who says the exact opposite and actually has an education in molecular biology, unlike Rob English who sells a subscription service for head massages.

Yeah. I don't know why I always call him Winter. Maybe there was a ball player with that name. Most of his content is free and he actually seems to be higher on many things than the massages but massage is a mechanical treatment that could work. He seems to indicate that one needs to do it forty minutes a day though, so even for obsessed folks on here, that is quite a commitment. I have started incorporating light massage when I watch television and it does seem to have helped loosen my scalp even more. I do think that it is funny how he constantly reiterates his credentials as a bald or formerly bald man when I don't think that he ever reached the point of significant hair loss. He mentions a tiny spot of hair on his crown but it didn't seem to resemble normal crown loss.

He does provide references. I generally find him to be a very informed individual whose talent is explication as to why things work or might work or don't work as well as finding anecdotal data from the past such as autopsies. Half the crap on here that we all know either doesn't work or works so little as to be pointless, he disparages coherently without being an *** about it. He was also one of the first researchers to my knowledge to acknowledge at length that MtF HRT could completely restore a full head of hair. None of the university or hospital sites seem to be aware of this. They all still state that hair loss will stop but that regrowth is impossible.

Anyway, he notes that larger grafts seem to be more likely to take than the smaller micro-grafts, which surprised me since micro-grafts are a highly-touted improvement over the plugs of days gone by according to many purveyors. His articles on microneedling are quite interesting where he discusses plucking studies.

 

[BetaBoy]

Rob Winter mentions that transplanted plugs do in fact engage in cross-talk and that this might account for better survival rates of larger grafts on perfecthairhealth.com. You can look at his posts on microneedling and transplants that mention the hair plucking studies.

Survival rates are dictated by handling of grafts by a physician/technician rather than anything else

 

[whatevr]

There is no doubt that an altered hormonal synthesis cascade is one of the main drivers of baldness.
Since we know that epitestosterone is lacking in balding follicles that potentially implicates a lack of 17a-hydroxysteroid-dehydrogenase. The upregulated androgen receptors & 5-AR in balding follicles are more likely to be a result of that, rather than the cause themselves (as the missing anti-androgen would regulate both of those factors). It is then quite plausible that the dysregulation involves more enzymes, 3a-HSD could also be one of the affected ones.

Of course the question is where the whole chain starts, which we don't really have enough information to answer. Research about the true etiology of baldness at a more insightful level than 'muh DHT & genetics' is needed and lacking, unfortunately.