I’m guessing because Minoxidil is only applied on the skin, that means only HSF cells (human skin fibroblasts, the cells that produce collagen for our skin and hair) are affected by the anti proliferative effects.
And your statement about collagen taking “years” to “form” is completely false. I’m trying hard to not sound like an arse here. Collagen is constantly in a state of being destroyed and produced. It is not “formed” like you said it is, rather our skin is constantly being inflated with collagen and how much collagen you have is largely dependent on fibroblast cell count. Oxidative stress and inflammation reduce cell count and testosterone and dopamine are things that can increase cell count. Remember that HSF cells are proliferating cells which means they are dying and being replaced very quickly, at a rate of thousands per second. While on minoxidil, cells are proliferating much slower, if not at all, due to reduced thymidine incorporation into the cell, which is required for cells to properly and stably undergo mitosis. Other vasodilators also have this same effect, but because Minoxidil is applied in large doses twice a day, it’s essentially a very large overdose and can have long term effects even after usage is stopped.
