DHT and Testosterone kills hair DIRECTLY........study

[michael barry]

Thought I'd make a comment on the DHT and T thingy.................



DHT supposedly has 3 to 4 times the "affinity" for an androgen receptor than Testosterone alone does. Think of it as somehow "magnetized" male hormone. If you have an androgen receptor on the cytoplasm of the dermal papilla and one DHT molecule hanging round and 3-4 testosterone's hanging round............................that DHT molecule is so much more prone to "get with" the receptor that it literally stands the same chance to get to the receptor site as the other 3 or 4 Testosterone molecules.



A certain amount of "androgenic stimulation" (male hormones binding with receptors) seems to be necessary to "kick off" baldness in predisposed men. DHT is apparently necessary to "kick off" this process, but after it has really started, perhaps just testosterone alone is enough to encourage it somewhat, BUT REMEMBER TAKING DUTASTERIDE ALONE is enough to slow baldness profoundly down-------or at least thats what many seem to report when they take it. Unfortunately, many also report lingering muscle soreness after workouts that last days longer, truly low libido, weaker erections with Dutasteride also. Dutasteride blocks 98% of your type 2 DHT, and over half of the type 1 DHT thats made in the deeper tissues of your body and your brain.

Propecia, which stops 90% of type 2 DHT, still sees 10% of it get made. Thats apparently enough to let the baldness process go on slowly after a two year or so "bounce" in haircounts. Youre still losing hair, but slowly.......................front to back. Maybe the hair uses plain testosterone at this point in the game, maybe not. Testosterone does no one's hair any favor's. Some men's hair just isn't sensitive to it however.


Old men who dont have baldness still go greyer much faster than women do, and their hair still gets a more "aged" appearance than females do even if their hairline doesn't receed and they develop no bald spots. Lessening androgenic transcription in the scalp is a good thing. Stopping DHT, the androgen that binds most actively, is the best way to do this. Using something that blocks receptor sites (spironolactone, fluridil, beta-sitosterol <my opinion>) would help even more.


NOW, a topical immunosuppressant is being tested clinically. Lipoxidil sells it, but I dont trust that site very much as their things are overpriced. However, Roxythromicyn has been shown to regrow some hair in vertex balding in tests in 8 out of 11 men. In test tubes, it protects hair against apoptosis and speeds up keratinocyte activity. So we dont know if its truly suppressing the T-cells sent by the immune system at the hair follicles or not yet, or is just acting as a stimulant. Hopefully its doing both. If it is really inhibiting the T-cell attack that is signalled by immuno marker cells (the immune system is very complicated), using this topically along with a copper peptide to repair skin (and perhaps some emu oil to give the peptide "skin" to work with), might really see some guys get some vellus-to-terminal conversion if used for a good year or more as I dont believe that its possible (unless you take big doses of flutamide) to block receptor sites all the time and allow the immuno response to peter out entirely.





%-----on my little idea about beta-sitosterol blocking receptor sites........people who take very large amounts of this (800-1000 at least mgs a day) report the same side effects of flutamide............grow tits, no libido, nausea, diarreaha, stomach upset, lousy erections...........it helps hair though and is included in revivogen and crinagen and some hairloss shampoos also.

 

[iamnaked]

Then pls tell how come dutasteride doesn't work in all cases. The amount of DHT it inhibits it should be able to maintain your hair for a long time. I'm still searching for an answer to this question: Why doesn't Propecia and Avodart work for all the people. I'd love to see a study about this.

That's a world away from the position which you originally supported, which was that some people start losing more hair on Dutasteride than Finasteride.

 

[crzyakta]

"%-----on my little idea about beta-sitosterol blocking receptor sites........people who take very large amounts of this (800-1000 at least mgs a day) report the same side effects of flutamide............grow tits, no libido, nausea, diarreaha, stomach upset, lousy erections"

beta-s usually does not cause gyno, as it also has anti-e properties, also it primarily binds at the testes/prostate, therefore larger doses are required to have an effect on the scalp

 

[michael barry]

Tell that to bodybuilders who took over a thousand mgs of beta sis a day and seen their tits grow on them.

For that matter, ME, a propecia user tried out Revivogen on a wrist about a year ago now for two and a half months. I already block most of my DHT with propecia, but the revivogen practically created a patch of vellus hair on one wrist. It wasnt from lessened DHT prodcution I gather. Something in revivo was blocking localized receptor sites in those hairs Id gather. Only two things in revivo should have the ablility to do that, saw palmetto or beta sis. Both would have to be in very large doses or concentrated ones locally to pull this off, ubless they somehow blocked testosterone's influence on the area also.


Beta sis has kinda fallen off the radar in the past few years because of other things that protect agains prostate hyperplasia that are more easily used..................new research has pointed to broccholi, blueberries, pomegranates, pygeum, nettle all being helpful (and cheaper to extract from sources). Beta sis is the one thing that nettles, pygeum, saw palmetto all have in common.

 

[htownballa]

Hey michael,

Do you know what scientifically "kicks off" male pattern baldness? I thought male hormone levels were pretty stable after puberty so why do most males bald in their 40s and 50s while some unlucky few (me) bald in their 20s??

 

[CCS]

mike,

the fatty acids in the revivogen block the androgen receptors and also 5ar. but i'm not sure they actually block it. They may reduce the number produced. I suspect the latter is the case, though I have not seen studies to back that up. You got me interested in the beta stuff until you said the concentration is too low to have done that.

do topical anti-inflamatories suppress the immune system locally?

 

[CCS]

I just read the abstract. I'd like to know just how high the concentrations used are compared to normal levels. Obviously if you inject a ton of any chemical into a cell, it will die. I frowned on the invitro azelaic acid studies because it shut down 5ar, but did not say what the concentration did to the rest of the cell. I'm sure if you inject hydrochloric acid into a cell, you will inhibit 5ar and many other cellular enzymes. They really need to specify this stuff in these studies. And there was no mention of a placebo. It was dose dependent, but I wonder how the dose was applied. Was the same amount of fluid applied, with a lower concentration of testosterone, or was less fluid applied, and how was it applied?

 

[michael barry]

htownballa

We dont really know why hair starts becoming sensititve to androgens in men at certain ages. Keep in mind too, that men have to lose about half the hair in an area before they really notice the thinning. Its possible many men who dont really notice thinning until they are in their forties were losing hairmass five years before that. It really becomes obvious when hair in an area like the line' is gone and its receeded.


College....................that troubled me when reading the study also. If you put enough water with those follicle cells in test tubes, it would probably kill em' too. It was interesting that testosterone did the trick as well as the eagerly-binding DHT. We know men with baldness have the variant of the androgen receptor gene found by German scientists almost 99% of the time. Perhaps having this gene gives more androgen receptors to the papilla so higher amounts of male hormone get transcripted at young ages.

Baldness seems multifactoral genetically. 4-5 genes are thought to cause it in how they work TOGETHER. This is why folks like me arent too excited about a genetic treatment for it being just around the corner. Can you imagine how complicated something like that would be.


I did see a company a while back that was working on ending androgen receptor expression in certain tissues to treat androgen-related disorders. If you could end receptor expression in hairs....................you'd end futher balding. It would be like being castrated. But you'd have to change the DNA in the cells to do that or in the next growth phase you'd have a new hair with working receptors all over again. See the problems there? Its a tough nut to crack isnt' it?

 

[HARM1]

So maybe this is the picture :
DHT AND T START DESTROYING THE CELLS, THEN THE EMUNE SYSTEMS "SEES " THE CELL GON BAD, AND ATTACKS IT?

 

[michael barry]

Harm,

Thats along the lines of what Ive thought privately for a while.


We know that the DP cells can release antigens or mitogens to the rest of the follicle when male hormones get trasncripted in the dermal papilla by the androgen receptors. Then genetically encoded direcetions are issued by the papilla cells to the rest of the follicle. Antigens are growth inhibitors, mitogens are grow enhancers. Doing nothing is also an option (eyebrow hair does not seem sensitive to hormones one way or the other in tests).

Ive privately wondered for a long time if its the presence of antigens that get the immune system interested in predisposed hairs. Antigens are associated with immuno response in other autoimmune disorders (where the immune system seemingly attacks parts of the body that it should not). Dr. Rolf Paus, a famous hair researcher, has stated that he has thought some small subclinical (very small) inflammation is what gets the immune system interested in hair in the first place. Who knows man...........things like this would be very hard to study.

If youre on the big 3, your doin what you can do at this point. Might add the american crew copper peptides..........................and wait for cloning to ever phuckin' come out

 

[hans]

I did not realize that testosterone directly can kill the hair. Damn!

Well, it doesn't conclusively PROVE that testosterone can do that, since it obviously could have been metabolized into DHT after it entered the hair follicle cells. But I've previously discussed a certain other line of evidence which suggests that it COULD indeed have been the testosterone, and not DHT. Don't you remember what I've said about that before?

Bryan

Is this why propecia is giving me the huge sheds? These are the sheds that ive never encountered prior to propecia.

 

[crzyakta]

mike i used to take 1.5g a day (it also had other phytosterols, like stigmasterol etc)

it helped keep some of the gyno down IMO...as soon as I stopped it, my puffy nipples from dutas slightly came back (very annoying)

also:

" Revivogen on a wrist about a year ago now for two and a half months. I already block most of my DHT with propecia, but the revivogen practically created a patch of vellus hair on one wrist."

i have a feeling some other component of revivogen was causing the growth, not he DHT inhibition, rather the growth promoters

 

[Bryan]

" Revivogen on a wrist about a year ago now for two and a half months. I already block most of my DHT with propecia, but the revivogen practically created a patch of vellus hair on one wrist."

i have a feeling some other component of revivogen was causing the growth, not he DHT inhibition, rather the growth promoters

I think you misunderstood him. I believe he was talking about growth SUPPRESSION on his wrist.

Bryan

 

[hairhaircomeagain]

I have noticed that after I have started working out aggressively my hairloss has become more aggressive. Is it the extra T ??

 

[hans]

Is it possible that some people just are more prone to lose hair from testosterone rather than DHT? I have an inkling that this is possible because there are people that report negative results from taking propecia, which is known to increase your testosterone levels. As for me, I have encountered sheds which may be considered as a normal thing to occur. What if the sheds that some people get are from the T and not the hypothesized affect that the propecia is making a shed just so new hairs can grow out of them. The study listed on this thread states that T can cause hairloss... at the same time there is no study to indicate shedding in propecia is definitely a positive thing.

I'm not saying propecia wont work, because it obviously works for a good portion of the population that tries it. But due to the variance of the human body from one person to another, it is not far fetched to guess that T can be the culprit in hairloss rather than DHT. For example, some people are just more predisposed to certain diseases and weird ailemnts while others are not, such as sickle cell for blacks to lactose intolerance in asians.

 

[JWM]

But that's not what he said Bryan.

ME, a propecia user tried out Revivogen on a wrist about a year ago now for two and a half months. I already block most of my DHT with propecia, but the revivogen practically created a patch of vellus hair on one wrist.

If Revivogen PRODUCED hair on the BODY that is a bad, bad sign, no? Or were his wrists really hairy with terminal hair before and the Revivogen turned them vellous?

 

[Apoc]

Well if it did then Revivogen is causing baldness instead of reversing it :lol: I'll sue the bastards.

 

[michael barry]

Let me make clear on the little personal revivogen experiment I tried.

I have fairly hairy arms (hairy legs, reasonably hairy chest). Revivogen, if it works, should DECREASE body hair by inhibiting alpha five reductase enzymes type one and two, mostly with gamma linolenic acid and the other fatty acids therein.

A couple of substances in revivogen are thought to be if not receptor blockers, perhaps receptor inhibitors or mimickers of estrogen. They are saw palmetto and beta sitosterol.


I put revivogen on my right wrist with the left as a control. In two and a half months, my right wrist hair was very much more fine and thinner and less pigmented than the left. I felt if I took this out to a good four months, It would have been more noticeable. It SUPPRESSED body hair growth, despite the fact that it has proanthocyanidin oligomers from grape seed extract (blueberry and green apple peel proanthocyanidins might be better...............and they are also in hops and barley extract also if youre interested in a completely natural stimulant)

I concluded that since I was on propecia (still am) that the fatty acids extra inhibition of DHT wasn't what caused the decline in wrist hair, but the S/P and especially the beta sitosterol.................

But, this is of course just my opinion. No formalized testing of this kind of thing has taken place. BUT if three or four of you guys did the same thing on a patch of your body hair (especially if you took pics) and got the same result I did in say,...................four months, perhaps we could conclude we were on to something and talk to Cassin or someone here at HairLossTalk.com about mentioning it to a researcher. Who knows.

 

[JWM]

OK gotcha. I didn't realize your wrists were so hairy. :lol:

 

[JWM]

Is it possible that some people just are more prone to lose hair from testosterone rather than DHT? I have an inkling that this is possible because there are people that report negative results from taking propecia, which is known to increase your testosterone levels.

I am starting to think this is a possiblity. I have NONE of the typical signs a young man struggling with male pattern baldness has. I have ZERO body hair (people think I shave my legs and arms and my face only needs to be shaved once every few days) and I have never had an oily or problem scalp.

I have always had very thick, dark straight hair. Around 20 years of age I started getting obsessed with bodybuilding. I overtrained and was in the gym 6-7 days a week. After a year or so, my hair began to thin, BUT not in the typical male pattern baldness style. I had no bald spot and no receeding hairline, but I did have a part down the middle of my head get wider and wider.

I decided to try Propecia and after 6 months I noticed the part was even wider! My g/f at the time even joked with me about it. I have since been on finasteride for 8 years now and my loss has continued at a slow pace in the same pattern. I am wondering if simply wouldn't have responded better if I never took finasteride at all and instead tried a topical approach with spironolactone or soemthing.

And BTW, no, I never did roids.